This Can't Be Happening
by StayOuttaMyShed
Summary: As a long time anti-brony, Morgan has always hated Friendship Is Magic, and is annoyed by his friends constant praise of the show. But when an encounter with a certain 4th wall breaking party pony brings him into Equestria, he must learn how how to adapt, and somehow find a way home.
1. Chapter 1: Through the 4th Wall

"You guys are completely insane, you know that?"

I watched as my two friends jammed out to some song called Winter Wrap Up for the third time in a row. It was another one of their stupid brony songs. My friends, Axel and Brycen, are two huge bronies. Brycen is around six feet tall, about the same as me. He's slightly larger than me, and was the only one of us that needed glasses. Then there was Axel, who is about half a foot taller than us. Not only was he taller than us, but he was also the only one of us to have a car or a girlfriend. Although I'm certain that she thinks that him being a brony is just as strange as I do. Normally, I don't really care about them being bronies, but when I'm forced to listen to this stupid pony music, that's when it starts to annoy me. We're on our way to Axel's house for a bro night. Plenty of wings, Mountain Dew, and Xbox. Normally, I'd be excited right now about getting to enjoy a good night, but the unbearable music that Axel was blasting in his car while he drove was making that pretty hard.

"Come on Morgan, you can't tell me that you don't like Winter Wrap Up even a little bit," Brycen asked me as he looked back to the back seat where I was sitting. "You got to admit, this song is pretty sweet."

"It was ok the first time that you guys played it, but now it's annoying the living hell out of me. Could you guys please put on something else?"

I could see Axel grin through the reflection on the rear view mirror.

"Well since you asked so nicely."

Axel pressed a button on his radio and a new song came on, and once again they both began to sing along as soon as it began.

"My name is Pinkie Pie! And I am here to say, I'm gonna make you smile, and I will brighten up your day!"

I sighed.

"Kill me now."

After another 10 grueling minutes of pony music, we finally made it to Axel's house. As soon as we pulled into his driveway, I threw open the car door and jumped out, automatically turning off the car radio in the process.

"Freedom! Dear sweet lord freedom at last!"

Brycen stepped out of the passenger seat.

"Kind of overdoing it, don't you think Morgan?"

"Coming from one of the guys that played non stop My Little Pony music for 30 minutes?"

"Fair enough."

Axel also stepped out of the car after turning it off. He motioned for us to head on inside.

"Gentlemen, shall we?"

We walked into his house, automatically greeted by the lemony scent of his house, and the sight of pictures of Axel and his family on the walls. I made a bee line straight for his bedroom to jump right into the Xbox playing. I needed some good old fashioned videogame violence and fun to clear my mind of the music I had just been subject to. The room was no different than how it usually is. There were various videogame posters hanging from the walls, dirty laundry and clothes hangers resting on his bean bag chair, and empty cans of Mountain Dew on the shelf where his pictures and mirror were. As I looked around the room, however, I noticed a distinct lack of an Xbox. Then I looked back to see both Brycen and Axel standing behind me with their arms crossed.

"Actually Morgan, we have something in mind for you before we start with the videogames," Axel said to me. "Brycen, administer the DVD."

Brycen walked over to Axel's DVD player and put in a disc. He then turned on the TV as the DVD started up.

"What is this?"

"What this is, Morgan, is an experiment. We have a DVD for you to watch," Brycen told me.

I looked back to the TV screen, as a logo for Hasbro was popping up. Hasbro? They can't be...

"No way guys. I watched the damn pony show twice now."

"Correction," Axel said. "You've attempted to watch it twice. You quit early each time before the episode could get really good. Brycen and I thought it over, and we've decided that it's time that you finally give the show a full chance."

The first commercial on the DVD came on the TV. It was a commercial for an older generation of the My Little Pony cartoon. Both of my friends looked at the commercial in horror and quickly pressed the skip button on the DVD remote, making a commercial for the current cartoon that they loved come on, and then they turned back to me.

"This here is Axel's copy of The Friendship Express," Brycen told me. "It has five episodes on it. You're going to sit through each episode to decide once and for all if you like it or not."

"And what makes you think I'm actually going to sit through this garbage?"

"Simple. If you sit through all of these episodes without quitting, and still don't like it, then we'll never mention the show to you again," Axel told me.

Never hearing about the show from them again? That was too good to pass up. Five episodes on the DVD would amount to a little over an hour and a half. Sounds about fair for never having to watch it again afterwards.

"If it means you guys are never going to annoy me about it again, fine. What are the two of you going to do while I watch this though?"

"Well, we've got to run by the store and get some snacks and drinks. Then we've got to go pick up a pizza, and rent some videogames. By the time we get back from doing all of that, the DVD should be over," Axel stated.

"Fine. Let's get this over with then."

"Alrighty. Brycen, begin the pony."

Brycen pointed the remote at the DVD player and pressed the play all option, and the first episode on the disc began. It started with a very girly looking storybook thing. This was going to be lamer than I thought.

"Enjoy dude. See you in a bit."

After Axel said this, he and Brycen left me there to myself to watch the show. I heard them go out the front door, and pull out of the driveway. The thoughts of leaving the room, or stopping the DVD and watching TV instead immediately occurred to me, but I decided not to. Knowing those two, they would probably quiz me about the episodes when they got back, so I ought as well get this over with now. As the cringeworthy intro theme started, I took a seat on the bed and braced myself for whatever the DVD had in store for me.

* * *

First two episodes are done now. They were alright I guess, but nothing really special. Certainly nothing to convince me to be a brony. Only three episodes left. Hopefully they go by quickly. The next episode was now starting. The country pony was making her friends help her take a tree to her cousins or something like that. Her putting the tree under covers and taking care of it was kind of funny, but still nothing that great. Here comes that god awful intro theme again. Whoever came up with that thing deserves jail time.

As the episode went along for a bit, they had some buffalo, and they kidnapped the tree and the dragon. The blue pony and pink pony went after them, and met up with the buffalo. I kind of do like the pink one, but only because she's so over the top. Still nothing good enough to make me a permanent fan of the show. The buffalo and country ponies are in an argument over owning land. I'll give the people who make the show credit, a cowboys and Indians type feud isn't something you'd normally see in an average little girl's show, but again, it was nothing spectacular. That pink pony has some kind of way to resolve the problem it seems. The dragon is wearing a hat for no reason at all and at a piano...oh god, she's going to sing again isn't she?

"We may be divided, But of you all, I beg. To remember we're all hoofed, at the end of each leg."

That would be a yes.

So the pink pony is now dancing around singing to the buffalo and cowboy ponies that they have to share and have to care. The song sounds pretty lame, so I find it funny that the audience in the show looks like they at least think the same thing about it. Also, what's up with her outfit in this song? That doesn't look like something any little girls should think about wearing. Now the song is over and the leader buffalo and sheriff pony are in an agreement. That was the worst thing they've ever heard? Wow the show actually got me to laugh.

"Ha, I can't believe the characters are actually aware of how bad the singing is."

"Hey, it wasn't that bad!"

I froze. Who the hell just said that? I looked at the TV and the pink pony was now looking straight at the screen. It looked a lot like she was looking at me.

"Ok...I must be going crazy right now. Yeah that's it. Watching this show has been so unbearable that I'm going crazy."

"Now you listen here mister smarty pants, I think my singing is pretty darn good."

The cartoon horse was for sure talking to me.

"Yep, I've gone crazy."

"You haven't gone crazy silly! You're just talking to me."

Now this was starting to get freaky. It seemed so real, but this had to be some kind of hallucination. I wasn't really talking to her...was I?

"You can really see and hear me? I'm really talking to a cartoon right now?"

"No, my name isn't "A Cartoon" you silly head. It's Pinkie Pie!"

"This is insane. This can't be real."

"Of course it is! Hey, how about I bring you in here and show you Equestria. Ooooh, wouldn't that be exciting? What do you say?"

"Huh? I...wha-"

I was cut off by the surprise of the hyperactive pink pony literally jumping through the TV screen and landing in Axel's room. She was pretty tall, probably reaching up to my chest.

"Come on, lets go!"

I didn't have time to respond as Pinkie Pie jumped behind me, and pushed me towards the TV. Rather than hiting the screen, I went through it just like she had done. I was freaking out, and before I knew it, everything around me went black.

* * *

Brycen and I were finally back from getting stuff for the night. It had been about an hour and fifty minutes, so the DVD should have been just now ending. I'm almost positive that Morgan is a brony by now. I got out and carried in the bags of snacks and video games, while Brycen carried in the pizza and drinks. We walked into the house and set the stuff down in the kitchen. I ran to my bedroom, eager to see if Morgan had enjoyed the episodes.

"Hey dude, we're back! So how did you like the-"

I stopped. The DVD menu was going normally, but Morgan was nowhere to be seen. Brycen walked in behind me and also noticed our friend's absence.

"Axel...where's Morgan at?"

"I don't know man, check the house. He should be around here somewhere. I'll check outside."

We fanned out and searched for Morgan. We looked for hours, checking the whole block for our friend, but for some reason, he seemed to have completely vanished. I called his family, and they had not seen him either. Something was wrong. Brycen and I were starting to worry that something had happened to him.

"Axel, dude, where do you think he could be?"

"I...I don't know. He isn't here, he isn't at his parent's, heck, I don't even think he's in this city right now."

"Well if he isn't here...where is he?"


	2. Chapter 2: Welcome to Equestria

After the pink pony pushed me through the television, the world felt like it was spinning around me, and there were all sorts of colors flashing around as well. There was a loud whooshing sound in my ears, and I felt like I was free falling. I just closed my eyes after a bit, waiting for the spinning to stop.

This all felt like some kind of really messed up dream. I was scared of what was going to happen when I opened my eyes again. Will I wake up, and see that this really is all just some tripped out nightmare? I mean it has to be. How can a cartoon horse talk to me through a DVD, how can she jump into the human world, and how can she push me back through the TV? It just can't be real. Can it?

In my thinking, I didn't notice that the spinning and falling feeling had stopped. The whooshing sound was gone too. Now all I could hear was...well I actually couldn't hear anything. My eyes were still shut tight. I seriously didn't know what to expect when I opened them. As much as I'd like to believe that this is a dream, it feels way too real. It felt like I was laying on grass. Wherever I may be, it felt like it was at least safe now. I guess it's now or never then. Time to open my eyes.

The first thing I could see was a big blue sky. Perfectly normal looking actually. Just a nice blue sky, with some clouds scattered throughout it. There was also a big bright sun. I could feel the warmth from it, and it felt pretty nice. Something about the sky seemed a bit off though. Everything seemed a bit too...colorful. And after I lifted my head up, it made sense as to why.

At first glance, everything around me looked normal. I saw some trees, some birds, and indeed grass all around me. But the thing about everything was that it all looked too colorful and bright. Like something out of a cartoon...oh crap.

Before that pink pony had jumped into Axel's room, she asked me if I wanted to come into her world. Then she pushed me through the TV. Now it was pretty clear to me where I'm at. I'm in the world of My Little Pony.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

A yelled as loud as I possibly could, sending all the nearby animals scattering away from my location. Not like I care. I was not only stuck in the world of a cartoon, away from home, my friends, and family, but I was stuck in the world of a cartoon I despise. Being forced into here didn't make me hate it any less. This can't be happening to me. This can't be happening...

"Hey! There you are. I've been looking all over for you."

I jolted my head up to see the source of the voice. Even in this colorful cartoon world, it was someone actually pretty familiar to me. After all, not too long ago she had just pushed me through a freaking television. It was that pink pony. Pinkie Pie, if I remember correctly. She was happily skipping straight over to me, grinning from ear to ear. Considering my situation, seeing how happy she was to see me here ticked me off even more.

"Sorry about that, looks like I lost you on the way back through the fourth wall."

She flashed me a great big smile. All I could do is just look at her, dumbfounded by her words.

"Well I can see you're still pretty shocked, so let me be the first to welcome you to the great world of Equestria!"

She smiled at me even more. Naturally, all that it was accomplishing was making me angrier.

"So what do you think?"

"What do I think? WHAT DO I THINK? You just forced me into the world of a cartoon that I hate with a passion, and you're asking me WHAT I THINK ABOUT IT? I'm FURIOUS, that's what I think."

She was pretty taken back after I said all of that. She had a sad and surprised look on her face. Obviously she wasn't expecting me to react such a way, for whatever reason.

"Huh? But I see humans like you watching us all the time. I thought you guys loved watching us?"

"Oh you mean the bronies? Yeah, those guys do love watching you. Like my two idiotic friends. They wanted me to watch this terrible show, even though I've already tried to watch it before. They promised me that if I just watched the five episodes on their DVD, they wouldn't mention it any more, and there was no way I was going to pass up never hearing about this garbage again. Obviously I had made the worst mistake of my life, because now I've just been forced into this crappy excuse for a show by some stupid pink horse! Why did this have to happen to me? Why did-"

My voice gradually became quiet as Pinkie began to cry. Her eyes shimmered, oversaturated with tears, until finally, she burst into that classic cartoonish cry: lots of wailing, waterfalls of tears, the works. Even though I found it amusing to watch, at the same time I felt bad for making her cry.

"Hey, come on now, don't cry. Sorry about snapping like that, I'm just really shocked by everything that's going on right now. This isn't exactly normal for me."

She stopped crying but still looked quite sad when she looked at me.

"But you said you hate watching us."

"Well I'm not going to lie. No, I do not like this show. It just isn't my kind of thing. It all seems too girly. Yeah, there's millions of other guys back in my world that love this show, but no I don't really care for it myself."

She sighed and looked at the ground below her somberly.

"I can't believe that millions of your kind of people like watching us, and the one time that I finally bring one of them in here to see Equestria for themselves, it's somepony who doesn't like it."

That made me think. It really was quite the thought. There are probably millions of bronies in the human world that would give anything to get to spend time with these ponies, and the only time someone does get to see them, it's me. An anti-brony. As frustrating as it was to be forced into this world and away from home, that actually couldn't help but make me laugh.

"Ha, take that bronies! Maybe coming here isn't so bad after all."

"Really?"

Now Pinkie Pie was looking at me with her previous extremely happy smile again, which made me chuckle to myself.

"Sure. Just wait till I rub it in Axel and Brycen's faces that I got to come into the My Little Pony world. It'll be priceless."

"That sounds kind of mean don't you think? If they're your friends, why try to rub something in their faces? Unless it's cake of course. I mean, who DOESN'T like cake? Oooooh, or maybe some pie or cupcakes? No no wait, how about pudding? Everypony loves pudding, And what about-"

"Alright Pinkie, I get it."

"Well the point is, if they're your friends, why not try to make them smile instead? I love making my friends smile. I even made a song about it! Want to hear it?"

"NO!"

She started to look sad again so I had to quickly correct myself.

"I mean, I've already heard it actually. Brycen and Axel had me listen to it back home."

That brought the smile back to her face.

"Really? It's good to know that somepony appreciates my super duper singing."

She nudged me, referencing to the comment I made while watching the DVD to get attention in the first place.

"Yeah, those bronies really love all the songs. You can take my word on that. And anyway, it's not that I'm trying to be mean to make my friends unhappy, it's just that they kind of force their opinions about the show on me so much that it starts to annoys me sometimes. It'll be kind of fun making them jealous that I got to come here."

"Well alrighty then. If that's how it is, then I'll bet they'll be ultra mega jealous when they see that you got to be a pony too!"

That made my eyes grow wider than they ever have in my whole life.

"A pony?"

"That's right silly! You did notice that you're a pony now didn't you?"

I looked down, and was horrified to see that what Pinkie Pie was telling me wasn't a joke. Back home I was around six feet tall, rather skinny, with a buzz cut. But when I looked down, instead of seeing my body, I saw fur. I had a dark brown coat for a body, and it was a little bit larger than Pinkie's body, probably because of the gender difference.

I then looked down at my feet, or at least where my feet used to be, to see two hooves in their place. I held out my hands to see that they too had been transformed into pony hooves. I'm a pony...time to freak out again.

"Holy freaking crap! How the hell am I a pony? How is this even possible?"

The hyperactive pink pony shrugged.

"Not really sure actually. I guess your body changes to the form of whatever kind of creatures live in the world you go to when you move throughout different dimensions."

"Well if that's true then how come you didn't turn into a human when you jumped into my world?"

She shrugged once again.

"Probably because the laws of physics and logic don't like me very much. I'm like an exception to their rules! But you get to be a pony now!"

"This is insane."

I thought about how my face must look like. I usually had regular green eyes and normal sized features as a human. But looking at Pinkie Pie, I knew my face had to look drastically different right now.

"Alright, I need to see my reflection so that I can see my face. Is there a lake or something nearby that I can look at?"

"Hold on, let me just go get you a mirror!"

Pinkie Pie rushed off in a quick pink blur. I had already lost sight of wherever she had just jolted off too. Suddenly, she then reappeared behind me, and held out a mirror in her hooves.

"Here you go!"

"What the- how the heck did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You just darted off to go get a mirror. How are you already back?"

"I didn't have to go far. I had a mirror stashed in a tree pretty close to here. I have mirrors stashed around all of Ponyville, in case of mirror related emergencies."

That sounded pretty ridiculous, but I had to remember that I'm in a cartoon world. No use in arguing with her. The point was, she had the mirror, so I should go ahead and get a good look at myself.

Looking into the mirror, the first thing I noticed was my new face. My eyes were huge in comparison to my human eyes. They were just as big as Pinkie's eyes, with green iris'. The color of the iris' were the same as they used to be, but as a cartoon pony, they were obviously now much larger. I had a short snout where my mouth, jaw, and nostrils were. I guess it looked somewhat normal when compared to the ponies of this world.

Then, I noticed my hair. Rather than having a buzz cut like I did back home, I had a short mane. It didn't go past my ears, and it was a little bit spiky. It was a dark blonde like my hair used to be as a human, but it was a more cartoony looking shade of blonde.

Finally, there was one more detail about my new appearance caught my attention most of all. Tucked down on my back were two wings. I didn't feel them on my back at first, but there they were, clear as day. I guess that made me a pegasus.

It was incredibly odd to look at my reflection and see myself as a pony, rather than a human. When I first opened my eyes here, I was so taken back by this cartoon world that I failed to notice my appearance, but now it was all that was on my mind. The weirdest thing to feel about it were the hooves. It's a drastically different feeling to have hooves instead of hands and feet. I had just been siting up this whole time, but now I should try to stand up and test my hooves.

I sat my front hooves down on the ground and pushed up to plant my back hooves on the ground as well. My back legs were pretty shaky, but I finally balanced myself and stood up regularly, or at least regular for a pony.

"Hey, not bad. You're a pretty quick learner, um..."

The pink pony suddenly gasped very loudly. It sounded like the gasp she did in the first episode on the DVD.

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe I forgot one of the most super duper important parts of meeting somepony new. I was so excited about bringing you into Equestria that I didn't ask you what your name was!"

"Oh, um, my name's Morgan."

"Well Morgan, I am Pinkie Pie, party pony extraordinaire, pastry chef, and friend to everypony in all of Ponyville!"

She put out her hoof as if asking for a hand shake, but that was obviously impossible to do with our hooves. I then remembered the brohoof thing that Axel and Brycen always did, and I decided that I should do that, so I lifted up one of my front hooves and extended it to touch Pinkie's.

"So I see that you're a pegasus Morgan. That's going to be so exciting. Just think, you're going to get to be able to fly!"

Now that actually did sound pretty awesome. It's not like flying was something I could possibly do back home. I immediately started to search for the muscles to control my wings. I flexed various muscles in my back until I finally flexed the one that made the right wing jolt up. I flexed a muscle on the other side of my back to make the other wing also lift up. As I tried flexing the muscles more, however, all it accomplished was making my wings move around in an awkward manner. I had no earthly idea how to work them correctly.

"Looks like these things will take some getting used to."

"That's alright! I know just the pegasus who can have you flying like a pro in no time. In fact, I think it's time that we got out of this field and went to Ponyville so you can meet everypony! And I do mean everypony. You can meet Twilight, and Dashie, and Fluttershy, and Applejack, and Rarity, and Spike, and the Cakes, and Lyra, and Bon Bon, and Derpy, and-"

"Ok Pinkie, I get it. I'll get to meet everyone."

She gave me a curious look.

"You mean everypony. You're not going to meet everyone, you're going to meet everypony."

"Do I really need to say it like that?"

"Oh yes sir! We speak differently here than you must back in your world."

"Alright so basically all I have to do is say everypony, somepony, nopony, etc instead of everyone, someone, and no one?"

"Yep yep yep!"

"Ugh, lame. But I can live with that."

"So you ready to go meet everypony now Morgan?"

She was looking at me very excitedly, obviously eager to introduce me to the ponies of this new world. I still didn't really like the situation I was in knowing my friends would probably be worrying about me soon when they return to see that I'm not in Axel's room anymore. I was going to need to find a way back home, and show them that I'm ok, but I'd have to worry about that later. Maybe one of the ponies that Pinkie Pie would introduce me to would know a way how to get me home.

"Yeah, I'm ready as I'll ever be."

"Okie Dokie Lokie!"

She turned and started skipping off towards the exit of the field. I followed her, awkwardly getting used to walking with hooves instead of legs, and slowly made my way to town with her. This world was going to be quite the experience.


	3. Chapter 3: Getting Settled In

Pinkie Pie was merrily jumping down the path we were on, humming to herself as she did. It was unreal how over the top happy she was, but once again I needed to remember that she's a cartoon. I guess that also made me a cartoon now. This has been one heck of a day.

It looked like we were finally getting to the end of the path, and were about to enter a town-Ponyville, according to Pinkie Pie. How original. As soon as we stepped out of the path and into the town, I got a pretty good reminder of a big reason for why I didn't like this show in the first place: the cheesy way everything looks.

Houses lining the street stood tall, and their windows had a cartoony purple tint to them, while their roofs were covered with straw. As we entered farther into the town, the streets also began to line up with stands selling various things, from food, to books, to even soap. It was actually funny how much different stuff they were selling.

Dozens of ponies were walking about, chatting, buying from the vendors, or just sitting around. They were all just as cartoony looking as Pinkie Pie, and all just as happy, although not nearly as hyper. The sheer amount of cheesy joy and bright colors was enough to make me cringe.

As I looked around, it seemed like a good number of ponies were looking at me, most likely due to being a new face to the town. But I noticed that there were three ponies in particular that couldn't seem to take their eyes off of me. They were significantly smaller than most of the other ponies, so I assumed that they were the pony versions of kids. A regular yellow pony with a big pink bow in her red mane, an orange pegasus with a purple mane, and a white unicorn with a pink and purple mane. After staring at me for a good few minutes as I followed Pinkie Pie, they finally approached us.

"Hey there Pinkie! Who's your new friend?" the yellow one with the big bow in her hair asked in a thick country accent.

"Well Apple Bloom, this is my new bestest friend Morgan!"

"Um, hi."

"Hello," all three of them replied in unison.

"Say Morgan, we haven't seen you around here before. Are you new to town?" the little orange pegasus asked me.

"Yeah, you could say that."

"Morgan just arrived here in Ponyville, and I'm showing him around!"

"That's great Pinkie!" the unicorn exclaimed. "But we couldn't help but notice that he doesn't have a cutie mark."

"I don't have a what now?"

"You know, a cutie mark. The picture that a pony gets on their flank to signify that they've found their special talent in life!" she replied.

I looked at Pinkie Pie and noticed the balloons that were pictured on her flank. As I looked around at all the other ponies in town, I noticed that they all also had pictures on their rears, everything from flowers to dumbbells. Now that I looked back at my own posterior, I could see what the three young ponies were talking about, as there was nothing pictured on my flank, just like the three of them.

"Well! Ain't that something. I thought we were the oldest ponies in town without a cutie mark, but Ah guess that's changed," the regular yellow pony said.

"Aw man, what if we get to be as old as him and we STILL don't have our cutie marks?" the purple maned pegasus asked. Her friends faces showed fear in response to her statement.

"We can't let that happen! Come on girls let's get back to crusading before it's to late!"

With that, the three galloped away, leaving Pinkie and me alone again. "Those three were Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo," she said. "I bet seeing another blank flank made them feel better about being blank flanks!"

I rolled my eyes. "Yup," I sighed, "They were some kinda super-duper happy."

She bounced around in joy and cheered, my sarcasm apparently going over her head. I groaned and looked away, trying to find something else to look at. But oh right, everything's sickeningly pink!

"Aw, cheer up mister mopey. This IS your first time in Ponyville after all."

Before I could respond, Pinkie's eyes grew wide as she gasped.

"It's your first time in Ponyville! Stay right here Morgan, I'll be right back."

The hyperactive pink pony darted off and was out of sight within seconds. Although I was expecting her to return quickly, which she did, I was not expecting her to return with a large pink wagon.

"What the heck is that?"

"This right here is my welcome wagon!"

How clever.

"Ok, so what is it supposed to do?"

"Just watch!"

Right after saying that, Pinkie pressed a red button on the side of the wagon, triggering it to open and reveal a bunch of balloons, flags, and instruments. Also accompanying the wagon was the start of music. Oh lord, that could only mean one thing...

_"Welcome welcome welcome._  
_A fine welcome to you._  
_Welcome welcome welcome._  
_I say how do you do?_  
_Welcome welcome welcome._  
_I say hip hip hurray._  
_Welcome welcome welcome to Ponyville today!"_

As she sang this incredibly cringe inducing song, Pinkie danced around joyously as she sang and even pulled out a drum and began to play on it for a line of the song. As she finished, she slid on her knees towards me and emphasized the final line to her song.

"...is that it?"

"Wait for it."

I was going to ask her what she meant by that, but an oven mounted on the wagon suddenly jerked open and shot out a cake, while cannons mounted on the side of it blew out confetti. Written on the cake in frosting was the phrase 'Welcome to Ponyville!'

"Yes! I actually remembered to put the cake and confetti in the right places this time. What did you think Morgan?"

As much as that song made me want to barf, the cake did look quite delicious. Not to mention that I didn't want to make her sad like I just did when I snapped at her earlier, so I might as well be nice about it.

"That was...entertaining Pinkie."

"Really? Do you mean it?"

The hyperactive pink pony looked pretty overjoyed by my comment.

"Sure. This cake looks pretty great too."

I could hear my stomach growl as I looked at the cake. I hadn't ate since coming to this world of ponies, so food was starting to sound like a good idea.

"Mind if I go ahead and eat it?"

"Of course not! It is your cake, silly."

I leaned down to take a bite from the cake, and after only one bite my mouth was greeted by a delicious vanilla taste, complimented by the strawberry flavored icing. It was quite possibly the most delicious cake I had ever tasted, and being so hungry, I ate the whole thing up within a minute.

"Dang, even in cartoons cake is still amazing. That was one of the best things I've ever ate."

"I'm glad you think so, I baked it myself."

"If that's the case, as long as I'm here, you're more than welcome to bake me some more cake. That was great."

"Aww, thanks pal."

That last comment made me cringe a bit, but I kept a smile on my face to show my appreciation for the fantastic pastry Pinkie had just given me.

"So where are we going now?"

"Well right now I want to introduce you to my bestest friends, and they should be at the library right now, so it looks like we're going there next!"

"Alright. Well, lead the way then."

Pinkie turned and began skipping off in what I assumed was the direction to the library that she mentioned. I followed her closely behind, ready for what Ponyville had in store for me next.

After about another ten minutes of walking, I could finally see the library that Pinkie had been leading me to. Unlike the other houses in this town, it was inside of a large tree, complete with a deck and windows.

"We're here! I can't wait for my friends to meet you and tell them about where you came from."

Pinkie hoped over to the door and waited for me to catch up to her before opening it. I slowly followed her as she walked in, now giving me a good look at the library.

It was pretty impressive as far as libraries are concerned. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of books lined the shelves of the massive building. There were multiple levels of the library, as there were stairs leading downstairs and upstairs. The upstairs area seemed to contain a bedroom, meaning there must be someone who lives here. Or I guess I mean somepony. That's still going to take some getting used to.

While observing the inside of the library, I didn't notice that five other ponies were standing around a table and were alerted by the entrance of Pinkie and I. Even as an anti-brony, it was easy to recognize them from the little bit of the show that Axel and Brycen had made me watch. Along with Pinkie Pie, they were the main characters.

There was the nerdy purple unicorn, the fashion obsessed white unicorn, the blue pegasus with the rainbow mane that bronies make a lot of lesbian jokes about, the country girl orange pony, and finally, the shy yellow pegasus.

"Hey girls, I'm here!"

"We can see that Pinkie. Who's your friend?" the purple unicorn asked.

"This, Twilight, is my special friend Morgan. He's brand new to Ponyville."

"Is that so?" the orange pony with the country accent replied. "Well welcome to Ponyville then sugarcube. What brings you here?'

I looked about, thinking about what I could say about that. They probably wouldn't even believe me if I told them the truth. "It's a long story."

"Actually, I brought him here from a whole other dimension."

Pinkie's five friends looked at her, puzzled, for a bit in a short awkward silence.

"Pinkie, that's impossible," the one Pinkie had called Twilight finally said. "Even if there were other dimensions, there's no way anypony could travel between them."

"Oh believe me, she found a way."

Pinkie grinned at my comment.

"I just hopped into his world, and pushed him back through in to our world. Pretty neat huh?"

Twilight came over and inspected me, making me feel all the more awkward.

"He looks like a perfectly normal pony to me Pinkie."

"Well duh, that's because he's in our world now silly! When I went in to his world he looked a lot different. He was a human."

"A human?" the rainbow maned pegasus asked. "What's that?"

"They're a type of mythical mammal," Twilight responded. "They're supposed to be capable of standing on two legs and have fingers and toes like dragons. But they don't really exist."

"Maybe not here, but they did in his world, isn't that right Morgan?"

"Yeah," I responded. "She's telling the truth."

The purple unicorn in front of me didn't look convinced. And as crazy as it sounds, neither was I.

"Hmm, still seems unlikely. Even if you are from another dimension, how could Pinkie so easily teleport there?"

"Easy, he was watching us, so I just jumped in and pushed him through the box he was watching us through!"

"Say what now?" the orange pony asked. "And just what in tarnation does she mean by watching us?"

I was starting to get nervous. How do you explain to a bunch of ponies that they're cartoon characters? Guess I had to explain it somehow.

"Well, I come from a place where humans are the main race. In our world we have a thing called television, which let's us watch TV shows on it created by people." They looked at me, perplexed. "Just trust me on that, because I don't want to explain how a TV works. Anyway, one of the shows that has been made is an animated one called My Little Pony." I looked around at the six ponies who were listening to me closely. "And, well, this world is pretty much the world of that show."

"That...doesn't make any sense at all," the blue pegasus said in an annoyed tone.

"Dash is right," the orange pony added. "How the hay could any of that be true? So what y'all are saying is that Equestria was made by these humans from another dimension?"

"Look, I don't really get how it works myself. I didn't think cartoons actually existed as their own world. But lo and behold, she jumps through my TV when my friends were making me watch an episode of this show," I replied, pointing to Pinkie Pie with my hoof. "Then she pushed me through the TV and next thing I know, here I am."

Twilight looked baffled.

"That can't be right. Well if our world is really just a creation of your worlds, then prove it."

"How?"

"I don't know," Twilight responded. "You said you were watching us, so tell us something that only we would know."

I racked my brain trying to think of something to say. I didn't like this stupid show, so how was I supposed to tell them something from it?

"Uh, well the six of you are the main characters in it."

That last response seemed to make the yellow pegasus, who had remained quiet this whole time, seem to cower at the thoughts of being watched.

"Not good enough. How do we know you and Pinkie aren't just making all this up for a prank?" the cyan pegasus asked.

I thought harder. All I could remember was the episodes I had been watching before Pinkie jumped into Axel's room.

"Well, in the first episode she's in some big fancy city, and obsessed with studying," I said pointing at the purple unicorn. "And then the queen pony or whatever she is makes her come to this town where she meets all of you."

"Ok...that's creepy," Twilight replied. "But I'm still not really convinced. Tell me then, how did I meet everypony here?"

"I think you met her first," I said pointing my hoof at Pinkie Pie, "But she gasped and ran away from you. Then you met the pony over there wearing the hat, and met her giant family and ate apples."

The cowgirl pony looked legitimately surprised by my answer.

"Next you met the blue pegasus pony, and she rained on you and cleared the sky, or something like that. Then she took you to her house to dress you up a bunch," I said nodding my head at the white unicorn. "And then you met her." I pointed my hoof at the yellow pegasus, who whimpered when I pointed her out. "She was all shy and stuff when you met her, but then wouldn't stop talking to your pet dragon when she saw him."

Twilight looked stunned by my answers, obviously not expecting me to give her the correct responses. She finally cleared her throat to speak.

"Spike is not my pet. He's my assistant and friend."

"Well you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do. And you got all of my encounters with everypony correct."

"He forgot to mention that then I threw you the most super amazing welcoming party ever after that!"

"Yeah, and at it you drank hot sauce," I added.

"Ok, I've heard enough. You certainly know a lot about my encounters with my friends, but there's still the possibility that Pinkie told you all this on the way here for a prank," the lavender unicorn replied.

I sighed.

"Fine. Let's see." I pondered, thinking of what I could say to convince Twilight. "After you drank the hot sauce you ran up to your room, said how every pony in the town was crazy, and was afraid of that big evil pony coming down from the moon. None of your friends were there to see or hear that part."

Now she looked even more surprised.

"Wow...he's right."

"See! I told you that I brought him from another world."

"Still, this all seems so bizarre. If Equestria is just a creation of inhabitants of his world, how is he able to be here when he himself was not created by the same humans?"

"Beats me. Like I said, I didn't think any of this was possible until she busted through the TV and brought me here."

"Interesting. And how are you a pony now, and not a human?"

I shrugged.

"Not sure about that either, but Pinkie said something about taking the forms of the creatures of the world you're in."

"Ugh, this is starting to hurt my brain," the blue pegasus said. Yours and mine both, kid.

"I agree with Rainbow Dash," the white unicorn added. "This seems quite absurd."

"Everypony calm down," Twilight replied. "I don't really get much of this either, but as long as he is here, I can study and use what he knows to try and figure out how all of this is possible. Until then, I think it's best we just get some rest, I can start my studying tomorrow."

"And where is he going to stay darling?" the other unicorn asked. "If what he's saying is true, then I doubt he has any place to stay."

"Well he's a pegasus, maybe he could stay at my place," the cyan pegasus suggested.

Twilight turned to me.

"Can you fly?"

Of course I can't, I just got turned into a pony. How would I know how to fly already?

"I just got here. If I CAN fly, I haven't been able to figure out how to yet."

"Right then. Guess that's a no to staying with Rainbow Dash."

"Perhaps he could stay with me," the white pony responded.

I could remember the scene of her house from the first episode. A bunch of dresses everywhere. Being stuck in this girly cartoon was bad enough. I didn't need a bunch of dresses, makeup, and jewels around me too.

"I don't know," I started to say.

"Well how do y'all feel about farms? We got plenty of room for a guest down at Sweet Apple Acres."

"That doesn't sound too bad, actually. We have farms back home too, and I used to go to my grandmas farm all the time."

"Sounds like a fit to me then," the purple unicorn said. "Will your family mind Applejack?"

"Aw shucks no. Ah'm sure that Granny Smith, Apple Bloom, and Big Macintosh won't pay him no mind."

I froze as the mention of the name Big Macintosh reminded me of a certain memory…

* * *

"Come on Morgan, just read one story. You'll like it, I promise you will."

Axel pleaded with me as we rode the school bus on a field trip.

"Axel, if I don't like your stupid pony show, why the hell would I like fan stories about it?"

"Dude just read one. It's a lot more mature than the show, I swear it is. Just read a quick one before we get to our stop."

I let out a sigh.

"Fine, just one story."

Axel grinned, and messed with his phone, pulling up the story he would have me read.

"Here you are," my friend said as he handed me his phone.

"What's the title of this story again?"

"It's called Sweet Apple Massacre!"

* * *

"Umm, are you okay sugarcube?"

I snapped out of my trance, realizing that I had just zoned out.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Hey, uh, is it ok if I stay somewhere else? I don't think staying with you is the best idea."

She looked pretty hurt and annoyed that I was turning down her hospitality.

"Why the hay not?"

"Bad memories."

The pony looked even more confused by my response.

"Just trust me on this one, alright?"

She nodded, although still obviously confused by what I said.

"Well, how about staying with Fluttershy?" Twilight said, turning her attention to the cowering yellow pegasus.

"Um...I don't know," she squeaked out. "He could scare off the animals."

"Alright, well that leaves-"

"ME!" Pinkie bounced up excitedly. "He could come to Sugar Cube Corner with me and the Cakes!"

"If it means more desserts, that sounds fine to me."

"Great! I'm sure the babies will love you too."

Babies? How about no. I didn't know how pony babies were compared to human babies, but if they were in any way similar, we wouldn't get along well at all.

"Actually I'm pretty bad with kids. That's probably not a good idea either."

"Oh, alright," the hyperactive pink pony said as she pouted.

"Well, I guess that means you're staying here then," Twilight stated. "Unless you're bad with books too."

"Nah, I'll be fine."

"Then it's settled. After today's excitement from this, I think it's time we give ourselves some time to think. Come back here tomorrow everypony, alright?"

The other five ponies nodded in agreement.

"Alright. See you all tomorrow then."

The ponies said goodbye to their friend and I, but stopped to introduce themselves before leaving.

"I'm Applejack by the way, pleased to meet you."

"I'm Rainbow Dash."

"Rarity. It's good to meet you darling."

"I-I'm Fluttershy."

"I'm Pinkie Pie, but you already know that." Pinkie Pie gave me a big grin.

"And I am Twilight Sparkle. Welcome to Ponyville mister Morgan."

The other five ponies told Twilight and I goodbye one last time, and took their leave.

"I'm sure today had been pretty tiring for you," she told me. She looked outside where the sun was beginning to set. "How about we have dinner and then call it a day?"

I nodded, eager to have something for dinner after only having Pinkie Pie's cake during my time here. The lavender pony smiled and led me to the kitchen where she made us both what she called a daisy sandwich. It wasn't as tasty as Pinkie's cake, but it was still shockingly good.

"Hey, so where IS your dragon friend that you have?" I asked as we finished up our meal.

"Oh, he's visiting Princess Celestia in Canterlot right now, but he should be back soon. As early as tomorrow, in fact."

I yawned as I nodded at her response. It had been a long and exhausting day, and sleep sounded like a great idea. Twilight could easily tell how I was feeling.

"Follow me, I'll show you to the guest bed."

She led me upstairs and walked over to a tidy looking bed. I slid in awkwardly, and covered up.

"I'm going to get some rest too, we have a big day of researching tomorrow. Well, goodnight."

Twilight walked over to her own bed and went to sleep. I lied in my bed for a short while contemplating the days events. So after my friends forced me to watch a cartoon that they know I hate, one of the cartoon ponies somehow jumped into the human world, pushed me into her world, and now here I am as a pony. It was still incredibly bizarre to think about. My friends were likely worrying about my safety, and wondering where I am. I need to figure out a way to get back home above all else, but as for right now, all I can do is wait and hope that maybe Twilight can find a way.

After finishing up my thoughts, I finally drifted off to sleep. Maybe when I wake up, this'll just be some kind of nightmare. I'll be in my own bed in my own room. Everything will be peachy.

Just. Peachy.


	4. Chapter 4: Seeing the Sights

I jolted up out of my sleep rather violently. That must have been the most messed up nightmare I'd ever had. Being sucked into the world of My Little Pony. I need to stop hanging around Axel and Brycen so much. Their stupid brony crap is getting in my dreams now. At least it's over and I'm back here in my library...

Wait, MY library? Twilight's library. Dammit!

"Guess it wasn't a dream."

I sighed. I should have known better than to get my hopes up about all this just being a dream. There was no way I could have dreamed up everything that happened yesterday. After looking at myself, I can see that I'm still very much a pony. As much as I hate it, I guess it's time to start the day.

I trotted downstairs and noticed that Twilight wasn't around.

"Um, Twilight? You here?"

"Yes, in the kitchen."

Sure enough, following her voice led me to the kitchen, where I found Twilight cooking some eggs. Of course, just following that delicious smell would have led me there, too.

"Good morning Morgan. Did you sleep, well?"

Of course I didn't. How could I get some good sleep when all of this is going on?

"Not really," I simply responded.

"Sorry about that. I should have breakfast ready soon."

I heard my stomach growl.

"What are you making?"

"Scrambled eggs. That ok with you?"

"Sure, but how do ponies crack eggs and stuff without fingers?"

"Easy. Since I'm a unicorn, I'm able to utilize magic. Unicorn magic is capable of various feats, such as picking up objects, transportation, and creating force fields. So I can just pick up the egg…" An egg floated out of the basket on the counter, covered in a purple glow. It came down smartly on the countertop, cracking with an audible smack. "… And break it."

"Ah. Well how to the non-unicorn ponies crack them then?"

"They can always use their mouth. We use them to hold a lot of things, such as pens to write with."

The more I talked to Twilight, the more weirded out I got. Before the conversation continued, a knock came at the door.

"Looks like somepony is here. Can you get that for me Morgan?"

Good lord that stupid cheesy somepony term still annoys the heck out of me.

"I suppose so."

I walked over to the front door. I looked down at the doorknob and wondered how the heck I was supposed to open it without fingers. Thinking about what Twilight said, I considered the thought of trying to open it with my mouth, but there was no way I was putting my mouth on it. I shrugged and just took both of my front hooves to awkwardly twist the knob and open the door.

"Ha, who needs fingers?"

When I opened the door, there was a pony waiting outside. A pegasus to be specific. She had a gray coat with a yellow mane and tail. Her cutie mark was bubbles and her yellow eyes were crossed. On her back she wore a bag with a muffin clip on it. Even as an anti-brony, there was no doubt about who this pony was.

"Derpy Hooves?"

"Um, yeah. How did you know my name? I don't think we've met before," the wall eyed pegasus asked in a high, air headed voice.

This was great. Axel would be freaking out right now. I can't wait to rub this in his face.

"I'm new here, but where I come from you're extremely popular."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. You have no idea."

A huge grin that could even rival that of Pinkie's grin spread across Derpy's face. In the blink of an eye she almost bursted in joy.

"Woohoo!" Derpy bounced up and down in joy as she giggled to herself. "That's awesome! Do the ponies I'm popular with like muffins too? Ooooh, how about blueberry muffins? Haha, I can't believe it, I'm really extremely popular!"

As Derpy continued to show how ecstatic she was, she suddenly tripped and fell right on top of me.

"Oops, my bad."

Derpy got off of me and sheepishly grinned at me as I picked myself up.

"Sorry, it's just that hearing that really made my day."

"Don't worry about it. Say, why are you here anyway?"

The yellow haired pegasus' face scrunched up as she pondered.

"Huh, what DID I come here for? Oh yeah, I came to deliver a letter to Twilight!"

She stuck her hoof into her bag and searched around for her letter.

"I think I found it!" Derpy brought out her hoof with a muffin held in it. "Whoops, that's not it."

Derpy quickly ate the muffin and reached back into her bag. She searched around for a while as I grew more and more impatient.

"Here we go!" She pulled out a cupcake with pink frosting. "Huh? How'd that get in there? Oh well." She tossed it over her shoulder and continued her search.

It's unreal how feather brained she was. Although she COULD have a disability or something, especially with eyes like those. Guess she can't help it.

"Here it is!" She finally brought out a letter and held it in her hoof. "Can you give this to Twilight for me?"

"Sure." I took the letter and held it in my mouth. I didn't understand how these ponies where able to hold stuff in their hooves yet.

"Thanks! Well, I got to go deliver the rest of these letters. See you later mister..."

"Morgan," I mumbled out with the letter still in my mouth.

"Right, see you around Morgan."

Derpy flew off into the sky to go about the rest of her job. I smirked as I thought about how to tell Axel about meeting her when I got home. I walked back into the kitchen and sat the letter on a table.

"You got a letter delivered to you."

Without looking behind her, Twilight levitated the letter over. It was as if she knew where it was just by thinking about it. I became more curious as to how unicorn telekinesis worked, or if she just made telekinesis look easy.

"Dear Twilight, just writing to tell you that Spike is on his way back to Ponyville now and should be there in a couple of hours. From, Princes Celestia."

Twilight smiled as she sat the letter back down.

"Looks like Spike should be joining us soon enough."

You don't say? I heard the letter when you read it aloud.

"Cool. Is breakfast ready? I'm starving."

"Yep, enjoy."

Twilight levitated a plate of eggs over to me. Next to the plate was a fork to eat the eggs with. I tried picking up and holding the fork as Derpy was able to do with the letter, but all I achieved was fumbling it around.

"Hey, how do you ponies pick up things like this without fingers?" I asked. "I saw Derpy hold that letter just fine, but this fork is…"

"Well we just pick them up I suppose. Pretty simple really."

Freaking cartoons. How the heck do they work?

"Fine, guess I'll keep trying."

I tried to pick up the fork a few more times, but failed in each attempt. I then tried holding it between both hooves in the same way I opened the door, but I found turning the fork up to face my mouth troublesome.

"Oh the heck with it."

I gave up on the fork and leaned down to eat the eggs using only my mouth. Twilight looked amused with my pig like eating.

"Having trouble using utensils are we?"

"Yeah. You never know how important fingers are to you until you don't have them anymore. If only this world would have turned me into a unicorn, then I could at least levitate the eggs to my mouth."

"If you can't yet fly as a pegasus, I doubt you'd have much more luck with magic if you were a unicorn."

"Well you got me there."

As we finished up the last of our breakfast, another knock came from the door.

"That must be the girls."

Twilight and I made our ways over to the front door and she used her magic to turn the knob and open it. As soon as the door was open, Pinkie Pie merrily skipped into the room. She was closely followed by Rainbow Dash. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity, however, were nowhere to be seen.

"Girls, where are the others?" Twilight asked.

"Fluttershy is having to watch over a lot of animals today. There's like a flu spreading around them or something," the cyan pegasus replied.

"And Rarity got a big order of dresses today, so she couldn't make it either," Pinkie added.

"And Applejack?" the unicorn inquired.

"Something about having to work extra on the farm today with Big Macintosh off on a delivery."

I felt a chill run down my spine once again at the mention of that name.

"Darn. Well, looks like we'll just have to continue on without them," Twilight replied.

"Don't worry, we'll go fill them in on what they missed once we're done," the extremely happy pink pony said.

"Fair enough. Ready, Morgan?"

"I suppose so."

"Good, let's begin then."

The four of us took a seat around a table in the center of the library.

"Alright Morgan, so why don't you start by telling us a bit about this "show" that this world is apparently a part of, and how you came to watch it."

And so I explained the origins of how the show came about and how it obtained a fan base of grown men.

"So the older fans of the show call themselves bronies. They have a huge fan base about the show, and the bronies make a load of stuff based on it. Stories, toys, art, you name it."

"Whoa, so there's a bunch of art about me in your world too? Awesome! I'd love to see that," the rainbow haired pegasus responded.

Oh no you don't. Knowing how creepy some bronies could be, I don't think it would take her long to stumble into the bad fan works.

I continued to explain how I wasn't a fan of the show myself, but was talked into watching some episodes by my friends.

"So then Pinkie jumped through the TV, pushed my back through it, and here I am. No I just want to find a way to get back home."

"How odd," Twilight said in response. "Pinkie, how where you able to see him?"

"Easy, you just got to be able to look through the fourth wall. It's hard to be able to do it, but I can pull it off well if I do say so myself," the hyper pony boasted.

"The fourth wall?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Yeah, it's pretty much what the humans are able to watch us through in their world," Pinkie replied. "And I'm able to see through it if I want. I saw Morgan here watching and I thought it would be a super duper idea to bring somepony who loved to watch us here into Equestria."

"But instead you accidentally brought in somepony who doesn't like to watch us," Twilight added.

"Right..."

"Yeah, listen, I'm sorry about all of this. I know it must not be easy to have some guy come in and say that your world is a creation of another world. But if it makes you feel any better, there are millions of humans back home who love watching you guys." I turned to face Pinkie. "And as for you, I can at least say that this experience hasn't been boring. It's been pretty entertaining actually."

Pinkie perked up and gave me the largest smile I had ever seen.

"Really?"

"For sure." I wasn't lying. Even if being in this extremely colorful world wasn't exactly a dream of mine, becoming a cartoon pony was in no way boring. Terrifying? Yeah. But not boring.

"Aw, thanks Morgan."

Pinkie jumped up and wrapped her hooves around me for a hug. I couldn't breath from how tight her embrace was.

"So all he has to do to be able to get home is go through that fourth wall thing?"

Pinkie stopped suffocating me with her hug as she pondered Rainbow Dash's question.

"Hmm, well I don't think it's that simple. I'm kind of the only one here who can bend the rules of reality so much to even see through it into Morgan's world. Unless he can see it too, I don't think he can go through it."

"So basically, you don't know how to get him back?" Twilight asked.

"No, I don't."

Well that's great. Why the heck would you bring me here if you didn't know how to get me back?

I hid my frustration as I spoke. "So, how am I getting back home then?"

"Well, right now it would appear that nopony knows how to get you home," Twilight stated. "What I can do is study up on books that talk about humans and other dimensions. Most of them are fiction books, but it's worth a shot."

"Okey dokey loki. Hey Twilight, I just got a super-de-duper idea. How about while you look up stuff in your books, Dash and I take Morgan around Ponyville? We could introduce him to everypony and let him see the sights."

"Well I don't see why not. Morgan are you ok with it?"

While I wasn't exactly pumped up to see the cheesy and colorful town, I wasn't really excited to read a bunch of books here with Twilight either. It wasn't going to kill me, so why not?

"Yeah, sure. Why not?"

Pinkie gave off a squeal of happiness in response.

"Great! You're going to have a blast Morgan. Come on Dash, let's go!"

Rainbow Dash flew out the front door, with Pinkie happily skipping behind her. I sighed and followed them out the door.

* * *

The three of us walked outside and were greeted by bright rays of sunshine. The sky was clear, and the day seemed to be your basic perfect day in a cartoon.

"So many places to go. Dashie, where do you think we should take him first?"

"How about the market? There should be plenty of ponies for him to meet there."

"Great idea! Come on Morgan, let's go."

Pinkie skipped off with Rainbow Dash flying beside her as I struggled to keep up. We walked past many of the same kind of buildings that we passed yesterday as she led me to the marketplace. It was a pretty large area that me and Pinkie had walked through yesterday with dozens of kiosks scattered around, selling various fruits and vegetables. Ponies were conversing throughout the area, many of them waving at Pinkie and Dash as they walked by.

"Now then, good morning Morgan. My name is Pinkie Pie and I'll be your tour guide here for Ponyville!"

I gave Pinkie a blank stare as she flashed me a huge grin.

"This is Ponyville market. Here we buy all sorts of food and stuff. Lots of ponies come here to talk. So who should we introduce you to first?"

I shrugged. I'm sure that if Axel and Brycen were in my position, they'd be jumping at the opportunity to meet all their favorite characters. I just really wanted to get this over with.

"Hey Pinkie, hey Rainbow Dash. Who's your friend?"

The three of us turned around to see two ponies behind us. One was a regular cream colored pony with blue and pink hair and rolled up candies for a cutie mark, and the other was a bright green unicorn with a harp for a cutie mark.

"Hey girls! This is my friend Morgan. He's new here to Ponyville, so we're showing him around and introducing him to everypony. Morgan, this is Lyra and Bon Bon." Pinkie motioned with her hoof to signify that Lyra was the unicorn and Bon Bon was the regular pony.

"Nice to meet you Mr Morgan," Bon Bon said with a smile.

"Morgan, huh? Kind of a weird name don't you think? Where are you from again?" Lyra asked. Bon Bon shot her a disapproving glare at her comment about my name.

"Er, not from around here," I replied.

"He's actually from a whole other world where he was a human with hands and everything!" Pinkie blurted out.

"HANDS?" Lyra's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Ha, oh Pinkie Pie you're so random," Rainbow Dash quickly said. "She's just kidding around. He's actually just from Los Pegasus."

"Oh...ok." The bright green unicorn looked almost disappointed.

"Well, we need to be going. Nice to meet you Morgan," Bon Bon said.

"Uh, yeah. See you around," Lyra added.

The duo trotted off and left the three of us alone.

"Well that wasn't awkward at all," I stated.

"Pinkie, you got to be more careful. We can't just go around telling everypony that Morgan is from a different world. It'll freak them out! Did you see how shocked Lyra looked?" the rainbow maned pegasus asked Pinkie Pie.

"Sorry, got a little carried away," she replied.

"So what's next?" I asked.

"Well, we got plenty of ponies for you to meet here before we show you around town so lets get to it!"

And so Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash took me around the market to introduce me to a bunch of colorful cartoon horses. There was a dentist unicorn named Colgate, a carrot sales mare named Carrot Top, and a time expert named Time Turner among them. The puns in their names alone were worthy of a royal facepalm. Or facehoof I guess. It took a while, but after being introduced to pretty much all of the dozens of ponies in the market Pinkie and Dash started leading me out of the marketplace.

"So where do we take him to next Pinkie?"

"Don't worry Dashie, I got this covered. I'm the tour guide remember? Now then." We came to a stop next to a long path that led to what looked like a farm, complete with a big red barn and countless apple trees in the distance. "Down there is Sweet Apple Acres. It's where the Apple family, including Applejack, harvest their crops. They make all sorts of super fantastic stuff with their apples. Everything from apple pie to apple cider."

"Aw man, I could go for a glass of their cider right about now," Rainbow added.

"I know right? Its taste is nonpareil!"

"Isn't that the word that those two jerk brothers that tried to put Applejack and her family out of business used?" Dash asked in an annoyed tone.

"Yeah, but isn't it fun to say?"

"No, not really," the pegasus responded.

"Well I think it is. Where was I? Oh yeah, on with the tour!"

Pinkie and Dash then led me various buildings and shops. There were basic things like a school and hospital, and more unique things, everything from a joke shop, to a quill and sofa store, to a bowling alley. How ponies can bowl is beyond me. After Pinkie and Dash showed me the pastry store where Pinkie Pie works and lives at, the tour seemed to be coming to an end.  
"And now, to town square! It should be the perfect place to end the tour on."

The duo led me to a large area in the center of the town. There were statues and fountains all around the area and one of the edges of the area had a river running through it, with bridges over the water for the ponies to walk on. Most obvious of all, though, was the huge building in the center of the area. Pinkie noticed me looking at it and smiled.

"That's Town Hall. We hold a whole lot of important things there, like the Summer Sun Celebration."

"It's just now finished up with repairs too." Rainbow added.

"How'd it get broken?" I asked.

"It's a long story." She responded as she winced as if she was remembering a painful memory.

"Why hello Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash."

We were greeted by a tan pony with a gray mane and scroll cutie mark. She was also the first pony I've seen wearing glasses.

"I don't believe I've met your friend here."

"This, Mayor, is Ponyville's newest resident, Morgan," Pinkie happily replied.

Is she forgetting that I'm going to be leaving as soon as we find a way back home?

"Oh my, a new member to Ponyville's family?" the Mayor replied. "Well Mr. Morgan, let me say that it's an honor for us to have you here, and I certainly hope you enjoy your stay."

"Thanks," I simply replied.

"Well, I must be off. See you three later."

The Mayor left us and Pinkie jumped up and down in happiness.

"Did you see that, Morgan? Now that you've meet almost everypony, seen the sights, and got to talk to the Mayor, you're pretty much an honorary member of Ponyville now!"

Oh joy.

"He is kind of missing one thing though," Rainbow Dash said.

"And what would that be?" I responded.

"We need to get you a cutie mark!"


	5. Chapter 5: Finding a Special Talent

We walked in silence for a little bit, Pinkie Pie pursing her lips in thought. Above us, Rainbow Dash bounced from cloud to cloud. I was unsure of what Pinkie Pie had planned, and held my breath until she decided to break the silence, as she inevitably would. (It seemed like silence is her worst enemy or something.)

"Let's see," Pinkie Pie said, finally. "What do you think your special talent could be, Morgan?"

"I don't think I can really do much as a pony that I was good at doing as a human. Besides, I doubt that I can even get a cutie mark in the first place, considering I'm not even from this world and all."

"Don't be silly!" Pinkie merrily jumped around as Rainbow Dash hovered above her. "Everypony has a special talent, even ponies from different dimensions!"

"You mentioned that you were cool with farms back in your world, right?" said her cyan friend.

"Well, yeah. I was born in the country. I spent a lot of free time on farms during my childhood."

"Then maybe you'll find your special talent with something at Sweet Apple Acres."

Pinkie stopped dead in her tracks and gasped.

"That's a great idea, Dash! I bet you're right, Morgan's special talent is just waiting to be found out there." The pink pony merrily jumped in place with a goofy grin on her face. "No time to lose guys, let's go!"

Pinkie took off into a gallop, heading off to the farm. Rainbow Dash and I exchanged a glance before she shrugged and took off to catch up to her. I tried galloping to catch up as well, but found myself stumbling and even falling on my face a good couple of times for my efforts. It was hard enough getting used to walking with hooves, how the hell did Pinkie expect me to run with them?

"Oh, don't worry about me. I'll just be back here trying not to fall on my ass," I yelled at the two ponies as they ran off. Pinkie Pie started to slow down as she looked back at me, letting my catch up to her.

"Fall on your what now?" Pinkie asked.

"Never mind. The point is, I'm not exactly good at running with hooves."

"Sorry Morgan, I'm just so excited for you to get your cutie mark. Aren't you excited?"

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah, it's going to be a barrel of fun. I'll finally know my special talent as a pony after being one for all of two days."

"Not very positive today, are you?" Rainbow Dash asked as she slowed down to hover above Pinkie and I.

"Well I haven't really gotten used to being a pony yet, so all of this is still kind of stressful for me."

"That's why we need to get you your cutie mark! What better way to help you adjust to being a pony than finding your special talent as one?" Pinkie asked.

"Fair enough," I responded as the three of us continue to make our ways to Sweet Apple Acres. "And you guys said her brother won't be there today, right?"

"What is it with you and Big Macintosh anyway?" Dash asked me with her eyebrow raised.

"I'd rather not talk about it."

* * *

"Alright sugarcube, apple bucking is easy as shooting fish in a barrel," Applejack explained as Pinkie, Rainbow, and I joined her at a nearby apple tree. "All ya gotta do is give the tree a good buck, and those apples will fall off quick as a whip." Applejack brought her back hooves back and used them to kick the tree with all her might. The tree rustled a bit as the apples fell from the leaves, down into the buckets Applejack had placed below it.

"Ok, looks easy enough," I said as I watched the final apple fall from the now empty apple tree.

"Wanna give the next tree a try then? That is unless y'all don't think ya can handle it," the orange pony asked with a smirk.

"Bring it on."

The four of us made our way over to the next apple tree, which had dozens of the bright red fruits hanging in the leaves.

"You can do it, Morgan," Pinkie happily cheered as I turned to give the tree a buck. I swear, she gets overenthusiastic about everything,

With my behind facing the tree, I looked back one last time to make sure I could tell my hooves would be lined up to properly kick it. Once I was fully aligned, I prepared to give the tree a buck. I brought my back hooves up in the air and thrust them out as hard as I could...and found myself flat on the ground rather than connecting with the tree.

"Nice one," the rainbow maned pegasus remarked as she held back chuckles.

"Good effort sugarcube, but yer gonna have ta hit the tree to make the apples fall down."

Oh really? I would have never guessed.

Holding back my frustrations, I awkwardly picked myself up and prepared myself for my second attempt. I lined myself up, brought my hooves up, kicked them out...and found myself on the ground once again.

"Silly pony, the tree was more to the right!"

"Thank you for that fantastic advice, Pinkie."

"No problem," she merrily responded, my sarcasm obviously going over her head.

"Give it one more try, sugarcube," Applejack said to encourage me.

"Fine." One final time, I picked myself up and lined up to buck the tree. I hoisted my back hooves into the air and this time kicked them more to the right, and actually hit my mark.

"YES!" I hollered, my face smug as I looked up in triumph. The tree had been barely shaken. I bit my lower lip in awkwardness as a single apple reluctantly fell to the ground. Behind me, I could hear Rainbow Dash explode with laughter.

"Er, nice job Morgan. It was a good start." Applejack almost effortlessly gave the tree a buck of her own that made every remaining apple fall from the tree with ease.

"You don't have to be all nice about it. I think it goes without saying that this isn't my special talent."

"Well there's lots of things you can do on a farm," Pinkie said, somehow even more energetic than she previously was. "Maybe your special talent is still here somewhere, right Applejack?"

"Sure. He could try collecting eggs, baking, picking crops. Plenty of stuff."

"If it involves using my hooves, it's probably pointless for me to try. Without fingers, I'm pretty crappy at doing anything with them besides walking."

"Clearly," the pegasus remarked while gesturing to the apple tree that I had failed to buck.

"Anything else he could do?" Pinkie asked.

"I don't know. Milk the cows?" Applejack suggested.

"What, with my mouth? How about no. I like animals, but I don't like them enough to put udders in my mouth."

"You like animals?" Pinkie asked as she rubbed her chin and pondered. "That gives me an idea!"

Pinkie quickly turned to the cowgirl pony. "Thanks for the help, Applejack."

Before Applejack or I could say anything, Pinkie suddenly picked me up and placed me on her back, not even flinching from my weight.

"Hold on tight, Morgan." Afraid of what would happen if I didn't, I did as Pinkie asked and held on to her as tight as I could. Suddenly, she took off in a quick gallop. "To Fluttershy's!"

With me placed holding on to her back, Pinkie rapidly made her was towards what I could only assume was the direction to Fluttershy's house, with Rainbow Dash following us above.

* * *

I'm not sure how I did it, but I managed to keep my breakfast down while Pinkie shot off like a rocket to Fluttershy's. As Rainbow Dash helped me off Pinkie's back, I was so dizzy I nearly fell on her.

"Whoa there, loverboy," she said as she lifted me off and to my feet, "I don't even know you that well yet!"

In a single overjoyed pounce, Pinkie Pie cleared Fluttershy's front yard and landed gently in front of her door. She reached down, picked up a shovel and began beating the hell out of the door like it owed her money. Rainbow Dash and I shared a surprised glance. She shrugged. Once again, it was just a matter of Pinkie Pie being Pinkie Pie.  
Fortunately, the shovel broke in half before Fluttershy answered the door.

"Oh, hello everypony. Sorry I couldn't make it to the library this morning. The animals are very ill today."

"It's OK, Fluttershy," Pinkie responded with a smile. "We actually came here to see if we could help you out a bit. More specifically if Morgan could help you out."

"Why is that?"

"She thinks I might get my cutie mark by doing it," I said as I tried to shake off my dizziness.

"Oh, well I don't see why not. Follow me inside."

The yellow pegasus made her way back into her house, the three of us sticking close behind her. She led us to her kitchen where she had something boiling in a large pot. The distinct fragrance of carrots mixed with various other veggies met my nose. It smelt fantastic.

"I was preparing some soup for the bunnies before you guys came. You can help me with them if you'd like to."

"Sound fine to me. I do like bunnies."

Fluttershy placed a ladle into the pot and had Dash help her carry it outside, while Pinkie carried out a bunch of bowls on her back. I followed the three of them close behind.

As we got outside, the pegasi placed the pot on the ground while I looked around at the gigantic yard. It was full of animals of all kinds: Birds, butterflies, mammals, and even a pond full of aquatic creatures. There was a chicken coop off to the left of the yard, and on the right side was what appeared to be a newly built shed.

"I suppose you want us to stay out of that shed, right?" I said with a chuckle, remembering the video series that was quite possibly the only brony creation I enjoyed.

"Um, no. You can go in it if you'd like to. There's just some gardening equipment in there for now. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. So where are the bunnies?"

"Over here," she said as she flew over to an area near the center of the yard. Indeed, there were countless bunnies around, although instead of looking lively and happy, they appeared to be exhausted and burning up.

"The poor things have come down with a bad flu. The soup really helps them feel better." Fluttershy placed a bowl full of soup in front of a brown bunny. "It's OK little guy. This will help you feel all better."

Soothed by the sound of Fluttershy's voice, the bunny ate from the bowl. Before long, they had eaten all of the soup. The green tint of their fur suddenly seemed to flush out, returning the bunny's fur to its natural brown color. The thankful critter then happily hopped off.

"Wow. Not bad," I said, impressed by how efficient the soup was.

"Your turn, Morgan," Fluttershy said as she poured soup into a new bowl. "Take this to a bunny. Be kind and gentle with them. They won't eat from it if they become stressed."

"Don't worry, I'm great with animals." As I grabbed hold of the bowl with my mouth, I looked over the herd of bunnies to decide which one I would feed. I noticed one white bunny that was away from the others that looked particularly upset about his sickness. "I pick that one," I mumbled out, the bowl still in my mouth.

"Um, Morgan, that's Angel. He isn't exactly too fond of strangers. You should probably try a different bun-"

I ignored what Fluttershy was saying and made my way over to the bunny. He looked up with his eyebrow raised as I sat the bowl of soup on the ground.

"Hey there little dude. Got some soup for you."

The bunny gave me a glare and scooted the bowl away from himself.

"Come on now, you got to eat it. It'll help you feel better."

I scooted the bowl back towards him, causing him to give me an even more annoyed look. He scooted the bowl away once more, this time with his tongue stuck out in disgust.

"Dude, just eat the dang soup. You don't want to stay sick do you?"

I started to scoot the bowl over to him again, but he placed his foot on it before I could and tried to push it away.

"Morgan, I wouldn't do that if I were-"

"Eat the soup you stupid rabbit!"

I pushed the bowl towards the bunny one final time. He alternated between looking down at the soup and looking up at me. Finally, he bent down to show that he was about to eat the soup.

"Ha, that's what I thought." I turned and started to walk back to the others when I suddenly felt a bowl hit me in the head. The warm soup spilled all over me, tingling my skin, and making me smell like carrots. The bowl was on top of my head almost like a hat. I gritted my teeth and looked back at the bunny, who seemed very amused by the sight.

"Why you no good little-" Dash and Pinkie held me back before I could get to the bunny. The fluffy jerk just kept laughing at me while I was restrained.

"Um, I'm sorry Morgan, but I don't think animal care is your special talent."

"Well how about we find out if rabbit kicking is!"

"Pinkie, I think it's best that we go," Rainbow Dash told her friend.

"Yeah, I think you're right." The two of them grabbed my front hooves and began to drag me out from Fluttershy's yard. "See you later, Fluttershy," Pinkie yelled out.

The bunny waved goodbye to me with his tongue stuck out, making me even more furious.

"Stupid freaking rabbit."

* * *

"So where you want to try next, Morgan?" Pinkie asked as she hopped down the Ponyville street we were on.

"Why don't we just go back to the library? I think I've had enough of trying to find out my cutie mark for one day."

"We could always go by Rarity's shop and see if he finds his special talent there," Dash suggested.

"I most certainly am NOT going to a dress store. I actually like farms and animals back in my world, and neither of those ended up becoming related to my talent. Why the crap would something I disliked even back home be my talent?"

"You keep using those weird words. Are they some kind of human thing?"

"Sure, Pinkie. Lets go with that."

"Well anyway, there's got to be something around here that'll make you find your cutie mark, we just got to keep looking," the pink party pony said.

"Could we at least get something to eat first? I'm starving."

"I don't see why, Morgan. You just had a bowl of soup earlier," the pegasus said with a snicker.

"Shut up." I was already tired enough from the whole ordeal. I was in no mood to joke about it.

"I know a great place we can go to eat, Morgan," Pinkie said. "Follow me!"

With Rainbow Dash continuing to hover above us, I followed Pinkie to wherever she was walking to. I looked around the sickeningly technicolor city as we walked. I could only hope that Twilight had figured out a way to get me home once we return to the library. She just had to. There had to be a way back. Maybe some sort of spell, or with some kind of ancient artifact, or-

"Yeah, take that you stupid Changeling Queen!"

A loud voice caught my attention as I shifted my gaze over to where it came from. My jaw dropped at what I saw when I looked over. A couple of feet away from us was what seemed to be the pony equivalent of an arcade. Inside of a small blue building were a good couple of arcade machines scattered around. Wait. Those machines. Those sounds.

"Are those...videogames?"

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash stopped mid air, and turned to see where I was looking. "Oh yeah, they're pretty cool. I take it you have them back in your world too?"

"Heck yeah we do. Playing videogames is my favorite thing to do in my spare time. I can't believe you guys actually have them in this world."

"Guess we're not so lame after all then, eh?" the cyan pegasus said as she nudged me.

"I got to try this." I shifted my focus to a dark gray teenage looking pegasus with a short brown mane. He was at one of the machines and seemed to be the source of the voice I heard. "Hey Pinkie you said you know everypony in Ponyville, right?"

"Yes sir! Every stallion, mare, donkey, dragon, gryphon, zebra, diamond dog, and-"

"Can you tell me who that is?" I asked with my hoof pointed at the teenage colt who was now deep into his game.

"Sure! That's Stratus."

"Got it." I cantered over to him, getting a better view of the arcade machine as I approached him. It was built almost exactly like arcade machines back home, and was a bright green. It was adorned with a powerful-looking unicorn and what appeared to be black bugs. I then noticed Stratus about to leave the machine.

"Hey, Stratus," I said before he left.

"Uh, hey. Have we met?"

"My name's Morgan," I responded with my hoof held out. He hesitantly shook it. "I wanted to ask you about what you were playing."

"Really? Cool." Stratus walked back over to the machine and showed me the start screen. Displayed on the screen was the title, "Princess and Shield."

"This game is actually pretty new. It came out after the royal wedding." Stratus then brandished a gold coin. "This game's on me," he said as he slid the coin into the coin slot.

The teenage colt pressed a button labeled START which made the machine come to life. I couldn't help but feel impressed as a classic looking 8-bit intro started up. On the screen were two ponies, a white male unicorn with blue hair, and a pink winged unicorn mare with a multicolored mane, relaxing in what appeared to be the inside of a castle. Suddenly, explosions started to go off, complete with classic arcade style sound effects.

"Dang, they really got this whole classic arcade game feel down," I thought to myself as the intro continued.

A large black creature that seemed to be some sort of splice between a pony and an insect then appears in front of the two ponies.

"It's the Changeling Queen," said the white unicorn via the 8-bit text that displayed above him.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! Time to get rid of this pesky princess!" As the text disappeared from above the Changeling Queen, several other smaller insect like pony creatures then started to make their way on to the screen, trying to corner the two ponies. Before they could get to the mare, however, the stallion knocks them away with what seemed to be a shield that he created using unicorn magic.

"Don't worry, Cadence! I'll do protect you!"

Wow, they even got the typos that old school arcade games had.

"Not if I have anything say about it! Ha, Ha, Ha!" The Changeling Queen then disappeared, and the game started up. The white unicorn was on the bottom floor, while the mare was inside of a window near the top of the screen. Scattered all across the screen were various platforms, stairs, and moving platforms. The background of the screen made it seem like this was taking place in a castle, with two large castle-like towers on each side of the screen, one of which contained the pink winged unicorn. The bottom floor looked like that of a castle bridge between the two towers.

"The game's pretty simple. You play as Shinning Armor and have to protect Princess Cadence from the changelings that come on to the screen. You knock them away using the shield. They can even be bounced off each other for bonus points."

Stratus was playing the game to demonstrate his points, but I was far too busy trying to pick my jaw up from the ground due to how the game appeared. Despite this being a whole different world, let along the world of a girls cartoon, the game looked exactly like how a classic arcade game would. Everything from the graphics, to the sounds, to the way the game seemed to play gave it the feel of a great classic platformer. Needless to say, I was eager to try it out.

"I need to play this," I said with my mouth still agape.

"Sure, knock yourself out," Stratus said, stepping aside so I could play.

I looked down at the control panel. Like the classic arcade games, there was a control stick for movement, the start button, and two action buttons. One was labeled "Jump," and the other was labeled "Shield." Jump was self explanatory, and from what the pegasus had told me, I had a basic idea for how the shield worked.

"So I'm just trying not to die, right?"

"Actually, Shinning Armor can't die. He has his shield protecting him. The game ends if the changelings make it to Cadence."

I looked around the screen some more. At the top left of the screen was a meter labeled the "Shield Meter." Must mean that I can't just spam the shield. Below the shield meter were a bunch of zeros, which was what I could only assume was my score. At the bottom right corner of the screen was a number. At the moment, the number said 10.

"I'm guessing that means how many enemies I have left in a level," I said, pointing my hoof at the number.

"You catch on quick, don't you?"

Before I could answer, a dramatic 8-bit tune started playing. Looking at the screen, I saw the first changeling come into vision.

"Lets do this." I placed my left hoof on the joystick while I had my right hoof waiting at the two buttons. Even without fingers, the joystick was relatively easy to maneuver. I tested out the Jump button, jumping up to one platform near the bottom, then jumping off. As I started to approach the changeling, I decided to test out the Shield button next.

I pushed down the shield button, and as I expected, the shield expanded further the longer you held it down. Shinning Armor seemed to slow down with the Shield button held down, and couldn't jump. The Shield Meter started to deplete every couple of seconds I kept it held down. Finally, the shield hit the changeling, bouncing him off of the screen, giving me 100 points. My shield meter had gone down a few notches.

"Way to waste that much of the shield meter on a single changeling," Stratus said with a chuckle.

"Got to get a feel for how the game works first, my friend. Now it's time to make magic happen." I focused on the screen as two more changelings entered, one from each side of the screen. I ran after the one nearest to me. Waiting for when I was close to it, I pushed the shield button. The shield meter only went down by a single notch.

"Not bad," the impressed pegasus said.

"So if I can't die because of the shield, let me see what happens when I do this." I had Shinning Armor run over to the next changeling, who was beginning to jump up the platforms. Timing my jumps well, I quickly caught up to it and ran straight into it. As I thought it would, it fell off the screen, dead-Mario style, as soon as I made contact with it. However, the shield meter seemed to deplete by another couple of notches.

"Well they still get beat by that, as you can see, but it's not recommended if you want to conserve your shield meter."

This backseat gamer stuff was already starting to annoy me, but I ignored it as I saw the Princess begin to do what seemed to be blowing kisses. As she blew a kiss, a pixelated heart floated down to a nearby platform.

"Let me guess what this does." I quickly jumped over to the heart and picked it up. I grinned as I saw my shield meter refill. "Nice."

"Yeah, the hearts can refill up to half of the meter, but the changelings will try to keep you from getting them."

After knocking away three more changelings, what looked like an 8-bit cake appeared. I quickly ran over to it to pick it up. I was rewarded with 500 bonus points. After grabbing the cake, three more changelings appeared on screen, two from the right, and one from the left.

I made short work of the one on the left. Wasting no time, I went after the ones on the right. One jumped up to a platform, while the other stayed on the ground floor. Once I was near it, I hit the one on the floor with the shield. It flew upward into the air and knocked into the changeling that was standing on the platform. Both changelings suddenly fell off the screen, and I was rewarded with 500 points, rather than 200.

"Whoa, you can bounce them off each other?"

"Pretty cool, eh?"

I noticed that bouncing the changelings off of each other only cost me a single notch of my shield meter, making the method all the better. Now only a single changeling remained. The final enemy finally appeared on screen and found itself quickly becoming acquainted with my shield. With the level over, an arcade style victory tune played before the screen went black. It quickly reappeared with a screen that said, "Wave 2," in white text. Shinning Armor and Princess Cadence ran across the bottom of the screen, with Cadence exclaiming "Lets Go!" in white text.

"Now that your beginners luck is over, have fun trying to beat it as the game gets harder."

"Oh I will." The next level loaded quickly loaded up. The background was the same as the first level, and Cadence was still in the same spot, but the platforms were rearranged. They must be randomly generated each wave. Wasting no time, I made mince meat out of the enemies in wave two, utilizing the shield bounce twice. Wave 3 was almost identical in performance.

"Dang. You sure you've never played this game before?" an impressed Stratus asked as Wave 4 was loading.

"Nope, never played before in my life," I responded with a smirk.

"Next level Morgan! Next level," Pinkie happily cheered as the next level loaded. I must have failed to notice that she, along with Rainbow Dash, had joined the teenage colt in watching my gaming.

I focused on the screen and noticed two blue colored platforms near the middle of the stage.

"The heck are up with those?" I had Shinning Armor jump up to on of the platforms. As soon as he landed on one of them, he began to slide. "Ice platforms, eh? Neat."

After stopping Shinning Armor from sliding around, four changelings appeared on screen. The enemy counter was now at 20.

"Lets rock." The first couple of changelings were taken out rather quickly. I found myself having to expand the shield quite a bit in some spots, but the Princess' hearts helped keep my shield meter high. However, I then soon found myself faced with almost six changelings on screen at a time.

"Holy crap there are a lot of them."

"You should probably get rid of them before they transform."

Before I could ask what he meant by this, I noticed a new item appear on a high level platform. It was heart shaped, like the one Cadence blew, but it was a shade of white, rather than red.

"A jewel heart? Well aren't you lucky."

Curious by what Stratus meant by this, I wasted no time in having Shinning Armor climb a stair case to reach the platform. I jumped over to the item and grabbed it. Suddenly, every changeling fell off the screen. My score counter received a hefty boost due to getting 100 points from every changeling. I sighed in relief as the counter showed that only one enemy remained.

"I wonder what he meant by transform," I thought to myself as the final changeling walked on screen. Instead of killing it immediately, I stood still and let it jump around.

"What are you doing?" Stratus asked.

"Experimenting." Roughly ten minutes later, the creature started to flash green and white. The flashing began growing more rapidly until its body finally morphed. I watched the enemy closley as the flashing slowed down and turn into what appeared to be a large orange dragon.

"Oh dang. What does that do?"

Almost as if in response to my question, the dragon began to blast balls of fire at me. Thinking that I could deflect them into it, I activated the shield. However, instead of bouncing off of the shield, the fireball hit it, and depleted part of my shield meter.

"Well that answers that." Dodging the various fireballs, I made my way over to the dragon as soon as I could and rammed into it. It reverted back into a changeling and flew off of the screen. The victory tune played once again and Wave 5 began to load.

"I don't know how you're doing this good, but Wave 5 is when things start to get really intense. Good luck getting much farther than here."

"I don't need luck," I said with a grin as the level finished loading. The number of changelings were bumped up to 25, but I made short work of them, especially thanks to the shield bounce. My score grew more and more as Wave 6 began. Before long, I was dominating the game and on my way to Wave 10. After mowing through a bunch of changelings, a large greenish glow started appearing near the top of the screen.

"That's not good."

"What's not good?" Stratus was unresponsive as I watched the glow take form of the Changeling Queen from the opening cutscene.

"Yeah, she'll appear randomly from time to time. She'll try to hit you with her spell." I looked at the screen and as Stratus had said, the Queen did appear to be building up a spell, her horn growing brighter and brighter as time went on. "If she's successful, she blows a black heart at you that slows you down and disables the shield bounce. Basically make things really easy for the changelings."

I took a deep breath before starting to make my way up the platforms to reach the Changeling Queen.

"Good luck getting to her. Witb the changelings still out there, trying to knock you away, it's almost impossible to get to-"

The backseat gamer was cut short as I made it to a platform near the Changeling Queen and held down the shield button. The shield expanded out and reached the Queen, knocking her from the screen. Stratus' jaw dropped as I was given a full 5,000 points for my efforts.

"You've got to be kidding me," the dark grey pegasus said as I started taking out the final regular changelings. Soon enough, the level was completed.

"That was awesome, Morgan," and impressed Rainbow Dash commented.

"More like, that was impossible," Stratus added.

I couldn't help but chuckle to myself at his comment before turning my attention back to the game. While going through more Waves, the platforms became increasingly spread out, making them more difficult to jump to and from each other. The changeling also grew quicker, and transformed more often.

Thus far, they had only taken two other forms other than dragons. There were dogs, which simply took away portions of platforms as they walked along them. They were still weak in this form. There were also gryphons, who kamikaze dived at Shinning Armor to knock him off of platforms. One gryphon in particular that knocked me off on the way to a jewel heart annoyed me.

Eventually, I found myself reaching Wave 35. I had encountered the Changeling Queen a couple more times and racked up an insanely high score, but was starting to get tired out. With 50 changelings now included in the waves, I found myself overwhelmed. Soon enough, the changelings knocking into me caused the shield meter to fully deplete. Shinning Armor wouldn't move and seemed to be in a state of exhaustion.

"Why won't he move?"

"When the shield meter runs out, Shinning Armor gets stunned for a bit and you have to wait for him to recover half of the shield meter, but it takes a bit. I've never even got to a level this far with so many changelings so-"

Before Stratus could finish his statement, the changelings reach Princess Cadence's window. The Changeling Queen then suddenly appeared on screen and laughed. The screen then went black and said, "Game Over," with a 10 second counter below the words to give the player time to insert another coin to continue. As the timer went down, the Changeling Queen flew across the screen with Cadence on her back. Shinning Armor was chasing them close behind. Once the timer hit zero, the Queen exited the screen and Shinning Armor fell flat on his face.

"Darn. I was on a roll." The screen then switched to a high score screen. I smiled as I saw that my incredibly high score was by far the top one. It was at least 3 times as large as the score in second place. Using the joystick, I entered in my initials and proudly looked at my score being displayed at the top of the screen.

"That was crazy. I've never seen anypony handle that game so easily." The teenage colt was dumbfounded.

"Nice going Morgan," Rainbow Dash said. "That was pretty sweet."

"It wasn't even a challenge," I confidently responded. "This is so cool. I can't believe this world has videogames. And you guys are still back in the old school arcade era. You haven't even gotten to the Playstation and Nintendo 64 yet! This world has barley scratched the surface for-"

I stopped when I noticed a sudden bright light coming from...my flank? I looked down at it in confusion when the light suddenly faded away, revealing a picture of a joystick on my flank.

"Morgan, you got your cutie mark!" Pinkie tackled me in excitement, nearly knocking the breath out of me. "I told you you'd find it!"

"I know Pinkie, I know. Now please get off me before I suffocate."

The pink pony stepped aside, but didn't stop jumping up and down in joy.

"Well no wonder you were so great at the game on your first try," Stratus said, also looking impressed. "It's your special talent after all."

I couldn't help but grin. Even if I didn't like this world, I couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction seeing the picture on my behind. It was comforting to know my videogame skills even existed in the world of My Little Pony.

"I got to say son, that was pretty impressive."

I looked up to see an older looking stallion with a deep brown coat and gray mane. He was sporting a mustache and had a large golden coin for a cutie mark.

"The name's Coin Slot, I own this here arcade. Saw your little performance. I ain't never seen somepony with such a knack for these games than you. And I'm mighty glad you got to get your cutie mark here."

"Thank you sir. It feels pretty good to have it."

"So what's your name?" He asked with a smile.

"His name is Morgan," Pinkie happily exclaimed before I could speak.

"Well Morgan, you're welcome here in my arcade anytime."

"Thanks. Glad to hear it." I shook hooves with him before he walked off to check on the rest of his arcade.

"Hey Morgan, this place is full of games just waiting to be played," Stratus said. "Want to play some more?"

For the first time since being here, I could feel myself feeling being genuinely happy as the thoughts of playing more games crossed my mind.

"You bet I do."

* * *

Roughly an hour later, Rainbow, Pinkie, and I found ourselves making our way back to the library. I sampled a lot of the games that the arcade had to offer. One game was about a dragon protecting its treasure from thieving dogs (Pinkie Pie called them Diamond Dogs), while another game was a maze like Pac-Man… except it took place in a creepy abandoned town and I was trying to escape these horrible skeleton horse things. (I think the name of the game was "Blanks". Not sure why.)

We also came across Rainbow Dash's personal favorite: "Daring Do and the Time Travelers". "It isn't as good as the first game," she claimed, "but it DOES have multiplayer!" We all played simultaneously, finding treasures, defeating monsters, solving puzzles, and so on. It actually kind of felt like a mix of Gauntlet and strangely enough, that old Chip & Dale Rescue Rangers NES game. Naturally, I was an ace at all the games we tried.

"I'm so excited! I knew we'd find your cutie mark for you today, I just knew we would!" Pinkie was absolutely giddy. Although I usually found her acting in such a way annoying, I still found myself proud of my cutie mark, so I was kind of happy about it myself. "It's like you're becoming an honorary pony now!"

"Whoa now, Pinkie. I wouldn't go that far. After all, I'll be going as soon as Twilight find me a way home."

Suddenly, Pinkie seemed to lose her energy and ceased her hopping as she pondered on what I had said. Her smile faded, and she looked at the ground sadly.

"Oh yeah, forgot about that."

The tone of her voice was depressing. She and I both knew I couldn't stay here. I had friends and family back where I'm from. Still, I could understand her plight. She had only just made a new friend, and suddenly, she had to say good-bye.

"But hey, that's probably a while from now," I said, trying to cheer Pinkie up. "And you're right, this cutie mark IS pretty sweet, isn't it?"

Pinkie flashed me a wide smile. "It sure is! I can't wait to see what Twilight thinks of it."

"You know Morgan, you may have your cutie mark, but I don't think you're completely adjusted to being a pony just yet," Rainbow Dash said as the library started to come into view.

"What more could I possibly have left to do?"

"Fly. You ARE a pegasus after all."

That got me to thinking. Ever since Pinkie brought up the notion of me being able to fly when I first got here, it's been something I've been interested in learning. Unfortunately, making my wings awkwardly spasm was still all I could accomplish with my wings thus far.

"Tell you what, how about I teach you how to do it some time? Give me a day, and you'll have it down easy."

I smiled. "I think I'll have to take you up on that offer."

The rainbow haired mare smiled back at me as we made it to the library door. Pinkie opened the door, while Dash and I followed her in.

"We're back!" Pinkie happily bounced over to Twilight who had dozens, maybe even hundreds, of books scattered all across the floor. She was at a table reading one of the books when Pinkie approached her.

"Hello everypony. How was today?"

"See for yourself!" Pinkie pointed her hoof at my flank. Twilight's jaw dropped.

"You got your cutie mark!"

"He sure did," Rainbow responded. "He aced those videogames like they were nothing."

"That's great, Morgan," Twilight remarked. "I didn't even think you could get a cutie mark, what with you being from a different world and all."

"Believe me, neither did I. But somehow, someway, here it is. Pretty awesome, ain't it?"

As I finished my sentence, I noticed snoring coming from upstairs, I raised my eyebrow in confusion.

"Oh, almost forgot. Spike got back from Canterlot today, not too long after you guys left. He's been helping me research today. Tired him out so much that the poor thing just dozed off here in the main room about an hour ago. I went ahead and moved him to his bed upstairs."

"Neat. So speaking of your researching, have you found anything yet?" I asked, curious to know if Twilight had already found me a way home.

"Well, I've been reading up on human mythology and theories of different dimensions. I've been trying to find any sign of how to travel between worlds like how Pinkie was able to do."

"Any luck, so far?" I asked.

"Um." Twilight seemed to hesitate, as she nervously looked down at all the books she had scattered around the room. "I'm really sorry, but none yet. However, when Spike returned today, I had him send a letter to Princess Celestia that detailed everything. I was hoping she would know something about all of this."

"Jeez Twilight, calling in the Princess' help for this?" Dash asked, a bit surprised.

"Well, the books don't have anything on it, and who else would be more likely to know about the subject than on of Equestria's own rulers? Anyway, it didn't take long for her to respond."

The lavender unicorn then picked up a letter on her desk, using her telekinesis. She levitated it up to her face and opened it so that she could read it.

"My most faithful student, I regret to inform you that I have not heard of such an occurrence happening before in Equestria's history, and thus am not particularly sure what to make on the matter myself. However, I will look into it and will be sure to write back to you once I have found any information that could be of use to you. From, Princess Celestia."

Twilight placed the letter back on to the table to signify that she was done reading.

"Guess that means I'm at least here for a few more days, eh?"

"It would seem so. I'm sorry about the inconvenience."

I felt...oddly conflicted by hearing Twilight's news. Normally, hearing this would have made me feel like going on a rampage, but for some reason I couldn't be fully upset. After all, the thoughts of learning how to fly and playing more videogames actually made me want to smile. But still, knowing that I was still stuck here in this cartoon, away from my friends and my family made me frustrated. Not wanting the other to have to see me in a distraught mood after such a good day, I decided it was best to be alone for a bit.

"I'm going to take a walk," I said as I walked toward the door. Once I reached the door, I struggled trying to turn the door knob. The annoyance of not having fingers for things like these didn't make me feel any better. Before I could further fight with the door handle, it was caught in purple aura and turned.

"Thanks," I said back to Twilight as the door opened. I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. Once outside, I let out a deep sigh.

"It'll be OK, Morgan," I told myself. "You're only here for a little bit longer. You get to learn how to fly and get to play videogames for now, and soon enough, you'll get to go home."

I looked up at the sky. The sun was beginning to set and soon enough it would be night time. Back home, my loved ones were probably looking up at the sky too, hoping they'd see me soon. I sighed once again.

"Don't worry guys, I'll be home soon."

* * *

As Morgan began his walk, trying to calm himself, he did not notice that he was being watched. In fact, he hadn't noticed he'd been followed all day. In the bushes, a mint green unicorn looked up as her target walked away. After looking about to make sure she was alone, she lifted a voice recorder using her telekinesis and spoke into it.

"Observation Log: Day 1," she said as she spoke into the device. "After a day of watching the suspect, suspicious behavior has persisted. I may not be able to say it's a guarantee that my suspicion is correct, but the plausibility is high. This can only call for one thing. It's time to begin Operation: Human Investigation."


	6. Chapter 5 part 2: A Human In Equestria?

"This...is...HUGE!"

Bon-Bon looked up from her newspaper. Lyra had been walking (or rather, bouncing) across the room, back and forth, often ignoring the furniture enough to bump into everything, in complete rapturous glee for the past half-hour. Bon-Bon sighed, and fought the urge to facehoof. She knew exactly what her friend was going to say.

"Can you believe it?!" Lyra squealed. "A real, live human is here, Bon-Bon! Right here!" Bon-Bon had tried to return to her newspaper, only for Lyra to grab her face and lock eyes with her, bearing a manic grin. "Right here in Equestria! Can I get a hallelujah?"

"Lyra, don't you think you're taking this whole human thing a bit too seriously?" Bon Bon asked. "After all, you and I saw him with our own eyes, and he was a pony. I highly doubt that, somehow, that pony was a human. Pinkie Pie was probably just being random again."

"Come on Bon Bon, this can't just be a coincidence. Think about it, that pony had no cutie mark, and yet he was almost as old as we are! That's not normal."

"It may not be normal, but it certainly isn't impossible."

Lyra rolled her eyes at her friend's statement.

"So I guess it's just another coincidence that he just so happened to get his cutie mark once he moves to Ponyville, right?"

"Well, yeah." Bon Bon froze for a moment as she pondered. "Wait a minute, how did you know that he got his cutie mark today?"

The green unicorn nervously rubbed the back of her head with her hoof.

"Oh, yeah. Funny story, actually. You see, I was kind of following him today and-"

"You were WHAT?" Lyra almost jumped back from how suddenly Bon Bon had cut her off.

"...following him?" Lyra sheepishly responded.

"Lyra, why would you follow him around? That's an invasion of his privacy, and I'm pretty sure that it's against the law."

"I know, I know, but I needed to find out if he really was a human or not."

"What is it with you and humans, anyway?" Bon Bon asked as she rubbed her temples. Sometimes her friend's antics never ceased to amaze her, and not in a good way.

"I don't know. I guess the whole human mythology just fascinates me. They seem like they're really interesting creatures. Plus, they have hands," she said as she waved her front hooves around. It wasn't hard for Bon Bon to come to conclusion that her friend wanted to actually BE a human.

"We've… look, we've been over this before. Lyra, I'm worried about you. I'm sorry, but you need to accept that they're. Not. Real," her earth pony friend replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Maybe not here, but you heard what Pinkie said. Morgan is from a whole other world." Lyra's eyes seemed to light up as she imagined an alternate world full of countless humans.

"And you're really going to believe something that Pinkie Pie said?" Bon Bon asked.

"Well, yeah. She may be random at times." Lyra cut herself short when she saw her cream colored friend looking at her with her eyebrow raised. "Ok, REALLY random at times, but all of this can't be just a simple coincidence. All I want to do is investigate this a little more to see if there's a chance that Morgan really is a human."

Bon Bon sighed. She spoils the girl too much.

"Ok, Lyra. Just please promise me that you won't take this too far. Look me in the eye and tell me you won't get out of hoof with this."

"Of course I won't. You have my word." The human obsessed unicorn gave her friend a wide grin. Once she was gone, Lyra brandished her voice recorder using her telekinesis and proudly looked down at it.

"Tomorrow, Operation: Human Investigation begins!"

* * *

At the Golden Oaks Library, Morgan, Twilight Sparkle, and Spike were all inside, enjoying their breakfast. Unbeknownst to them, Lyra was hiding outside in a bush, observing them with a pair of binoculars that she held up with her magic. Her voice recorder was lying on the ground as she kept her gaze locked on Morgan.

"Operation: Human Investigation has officially begun," she whispered into the device, being careful not to be loud enough to give away her position to any nearby pedestrians. "Suspect seems to have trouble using forks." Lyra watched as Morgan fumbled with his fork and glared at Spike, who was able to hold his utensil with ease. The pegasus then groaned and began eating his eggs by leaning down to eat it like a pig.

"How odd. Perhaps the suspect is unable to hold objects in his hooves." The mint green unicorn smiled to herself. "Humans WOULD have trouble holding things with hooves, considering they go their whole lives having hands. Very suspicious."

Lyra stopped talking when she noticed Morgan get up and start heading for the door.

"Suspect is on the move. Time to get closer." The stalking unicorn silently placed her binoculars into the saddlebag that she was wearing. She tip-hoofed from bush to bush until she could get a good view of the library entrance. As if on cue, Morgan then cantered out the door, a saddlebag placed on his back, and began walking toward the center of town.

"Looks like the suspect is going to be going to town, today. Going to have to be extra careful to not blow my cover." Lyra stopped her voice recorder and placed it into her saddlebag. She watched Morgan as he walked down the road, still not even aware in the slightest that he was being watched.

"I'm on to you, Morgan," Lyra said to herself as she prepared to follow her target into town. "One way, or another, I'll prove that you're a human."

* * *

Lyra stuck to staying as incognito as she could as she followed Morgan throughout Ponyville. Any time that she thought he could catch on to her shadowing him, she would hide behind the nearest available object, whether it be in a fruit stand, under a table, or even behind other ponies. Ignoring the confused looks that everypony was giving her, the unicorn stalked her target as well as she could.

"Hey, Morgan! What's up?"

Morgan turned his head and smiled as a teenage dark gray colt approached him. Lyra quickly dived into a nearby barrel to hide herself. Unbeknownst to her, the barrel was used as a trash can, and found herself coated in garbage with a lingering dreadful smell. However, she stayed focused on listening in on her target.

"Hey, Stratus. Nothing much, just looking around town for a couple of things. Thought I'd try out one of the restaurants later and see what all the vendors are selling." Morgan looked back at one of the pockets on his saddlebag. "Twilight even let me borrow a few coins to spend."

"Coins? Don't you mean bits?" Stratus asked.

"Right, bits. That's what I meant to say." Lyra, still in her hiding place, raised her eyebrow due to Morgan's suspicious sounding response. "Just, uh… Some bits. To use. To… try out. Some food. And, and stuff." Morgan's eyes darted about.

"Checking out what the town has to offer, eh?" The gray pegasus asked. "Oh, yeah, Dash and Pinkie said you were from Los Pegasus, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure am," Morgan responded after a bit of hesitation. Lyra raised her eyebrow.

"Cool, cool. Don't suppose she gave you a few bits to use at the arcade, did she?"

Morgan grinned.

"She did. Not many, but it's not like I'll need a lot. It IS my special talent, after all." Morgan smugly stated.

Stratus rolled his eyes and chuckled.

"Well, what are we waiting for? The Arcade's waiting."

Stratus and Morgan walked off, making their way to the arcade. Once she was sure that it was safe, Lyra made her way out of her hiding place and pulled out her voice recorder. Before she could speak, however, she felt a fresh pile of garbage fall on top of her. After dry heaving and wiping off what she could only assume was a batch of rotten fruit, she began to speak.

"Suspect continues to show suspicious behavior, today. Not only did he mistakenly call bits, "Coins," he also sounded like he didn't remember his own home town. Must continue observations."

The unicorn floated the device back into her bag and climbed out of the barrel. After cleaning herself off as well as she could, she caught up to the pegasus duo that was making their way to the arcade, making sure that she wasn't noticed. Once they reached the arcade, the two played the video games for nearly an hour. As Lyra watched the two of them while hiding under a muffin kiosk that was across the street, she fought the urge to fall asleep.

"I got to get going. See you later."

The mint green mare's ears perked up as she saw Morgan leaving the arcade. She brought the voice recorder up to her face as she watched him.

"No suspicious behavior displayed by the target during his time at the arcade, but I will continue to pursue him. Hopefully, we'll soon make a breakthrough on my suspicions."

"Uh, Lyra? What are you doing?"

The unicorn froze as she heard the voice. When she turned her head, she saw that a gray pegasus mare was looking at her, puzzled as to why she was hiding under a muffin kiosk. Lyra quickly scrambled out from under the kiosk and stood up.

"Oh, hey Derpy. You see..." Lyra looked around nervously to think of an explanation. Unable to think of one, Lyra picked up a muffin in her magic and hoofed it to Derpy. "Here, have a free muffin. It's on me."

Derpy's eyes lit up as she looked at the muffin in joy.

"Thanks, Lyra! You're the best." The gray mare gobbled the muffin down in one bite and happily trotted off. Lyra breathed a sigh of relief and gave the kiosk owner a couple of bits for the muffin before following Morgan once more.

After observing her target go about town and checking inside a few stores to see what they had to offer, Lyra followed him to a restaurant in the middle of town. Obviously hungry, Morgan decided to try it out. After being seated at a table on the outside, Lyra made her way to a different nearby table, while also holding up a menu to hide herself from his view. Eventually, a waiter came to wait on Morgan.

"Good evening, sir. What will you be having today?"

Morgan seemed to look over the menu, perplexed, before looking back up at the waiter.

"I'm guessing you guys don't hamburgers here, do you?"

The waiter gave the colt a confused look.

"How about a hot dog?"

The waiter once again had a confused look on his face.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I have never heard of either of those things."

"Well, do you guys have french fries?"

"We have hay fries. Is that what you call them from where you are from?"

"Yeah, I guess so." Morgan sighed. "I guess I'll have an order of hay fries then."

The waiter nodded and picked up Morgan's menu.

"Very good, sir. I'll have that out for you as soon as possible. I'll be back momentarily with a glass of water."

The waiter cantered off, leaving Morgan by himself. He had a slight look of disappointment.

"Should have remembered that these guys are herbivores. They may make some dang good cake, but I'd kill for some meat right now." The pegasus sighed. "First thing I'm doing when I get home is getting a nice big cheeseburger."

Meanwhile, Lyra couldn't contain her excitement over at her table. Making sure that Morgan couldn't see or hear her, she brought out her voice recorder.

"Major breakthrough! Suspect just tried to order odd, unknown things at restaurant, and then admitted to 'Missing, meat.' I don't recall ever hearing of anypony who eats meat. This may be the breakthrough I was hoping for."

"Excuse me, miss, but may I take your order?"

"No thanks, I'm just spying on that guy over there."

Lyra froze when she realized what she had just told the waiter. She looked up and saw that he was giving her a very perplexed look.

"I beg your pardon?" He asked.

"Uh...I said that I'll have a daisy sandwich, please." She nervously replied.

"Ok, then. I'll have that out for you as soon as I can."

The stallion walked off, obviously still confused by what he had heard from the odd unicorn. Putting the awkward event behind her, Lyra continued to observe Morgan as he finished his meal. As far as she could tell, he seemed to enjoy his fries, but still seemed to be disappointed that he didn't get to have whatever a hamburger was.

Shortly after leaving the restaurant, Morgan ran into Rainbow Dash. Lyra kept nearby, watching the duo talk.

"Hey, Morgan! You excited for tomorrow?" the rainbow maned mare asked.

"What's tomorrow?" Morgan asked in response.

"Your flying lesson, what else?"

Morgan's ears seemed to perk up as a wide grin spread across his face.

"Already? Awesome, I can't wait. You really think you can get me flying within a day?"

Rainbow Dash scoffed.

"Of course I can. I'm the fastest flier in Equestria. If there's anypony who can get you flying in no time at all, it's me."

"Well, can't argue with that. This is going to be sweet, flying isn't something we can do back home."

"Hey, be careful about talking about that out in public. Wouldn't want anypony else finding out about your secret," Dash responded.

"His secret, eh?" Lyra mumbled to herself. Her mind was going a mile a minute, half of her being ecstatic that they had pretty much confirmed her suspicions, and the other half being mad that she didn't capture it on tape.

"Whatever, I doubt anyone's paying attention to us." Morgan saw Rainbow Dash giving him a confused look and sighed. "I mean, I doubt anypony's paying attention to us."

"Still, you should be more careful about talking about it. It could freak ponies out, knowing where you're from."

"Oh, I'm sure it would," Lyra quietly commented, still unseen by the pegasi.

"Fine," Morgan said as he rolled his eyes. "Just be up early tomorrow. I want to start my flight lesson as soon as possible."

"I promise nothing," Dash said with a chuckle before flying off. With her gone, Lyra wasted no time in bringing out her voice recorder as she began to canter off.

"Suspicion all but confirmed now. After a conversation between the suspect and Rainbow Dash, both mentioned that the suspect is from another place where flying isn't normal. Furthermore, Rainbow Dash told the suspect that mentioning where he is from could cause people to freak out. There is virtually no question about it, anymore. Morgan is definitely a hu-"

Lyra was cut off when she suddenly bumped into somepony due to not paying attention where she was walking. Her voice recorder began to drop to the ground and she quickly caught it in her magic and put it away, before it could hit the floor.

"Sorry about that, didn't see where I was going." The unicorn looked up to offer to help the other pony up when she realized who she had bumped into. It was Morgan.

"Ugh. It's fine, don't worry about it." The pegasus awkwardly picked himself up and looked up at her. "Hey, didn't Pinkie introduce me to you the other day?"

"Yes, I think so," Lyra nervously responded. "You're Morgan, right?"

"And you're..." Morgan scratched his head.

"Lyra," she said.

"Lyra, yeah. Sorry, I was kind of blanked out, thinking about something."

"Yeah, I couldn't help but overhear you and Rainbow Dash talking about some flying lessons tomorrow."

Morgan's eyes grew wide, obviously due to not expecting that somepony had heard his conversation with Rainbow Dash. He hoped that the mention of flying lessons was all that she had heard.

"Uh...yeah. She's just giving me some flying tips and stuff. I'm not really that much of a good flier. She figured that some flying lessons would help me get the hang of it."

"Flying lessons, eh? Why haven't you learned how to fly, already?" Lyra asked nonchalantly.

"Oh, well, I didn't really get a chance to learn how to back home," Morgan hesitantly responded.

"Didn't Rainbow Dash say that you were from Los Pegasus?" Lyra asked. "I heard that they have one of the best flying academies in Equestria, second only to Cloudsdale."

"They do," Morgan nervously responded. "I, uh...had to drop out since I was moving here to Ponyville."

"But you just moved here. Shouldn't they have taught you how to fly when you were a little colt?"

"Um..." Morgan looked up at a nearby clock tower and pretended to act surprised. "Oh, dang, look at the time. I really need to get back to the library. I'll see you around, Lyra."

Before the unicorn could respond, Morgan took off as fast as he could, almost falling various times in the process. Soon enough, he was out of sight. A smirk spread across Lyra's face as she pulled her voice recorder out one final time.

"Observation Log: Day 2. Operation: Human Investigation was a complete success. After a day of observing the target, not only has suspicious behavior persisted, the suspect and I also had a personal encounter. I caught him in an obvious lie about supposedly being from Los Pegasus, forcing him to have to leave before blowing his cover. I am now certain about it. Morgan is a human. I don't know how he got here, but he is definitely not from Equestria. This is a huge discovery."

Lyra smiled to herself as she continued talking into the device.

"Until I can figure out how he got here, I should continue to keep an eye on the suspect. Tomorrow he will be receiving flying lessons from Rainbow Dash. He may not know it, nor will he find out, but I'll be there. Perhaps I'll discover another breakthrough in all of this tomorrow. Since they'll be alone tomorrow, he may even admit to being a human, thinking that nopony will be there to hear him. Looking forward to continuing the observation tomorrow."

Lyra turned off her device and placed it in her satchel. No longer being tapped, she let out a high pitched squeal of delight.

"I have got to tell Bon Bon about all of this!"


	7. Chapter 6: Flight Lessons

"Are you some kind of lunatic?!"

I looked down in horror. I was atop a large cliff on the edge of Ponyville, with Rainbow Dash hovering closely above me. It was the day that she had promised to give me lessons on how to use my wings and she wasted no time in bringing me to what she believed was the ideal spot to learn how to fly. She had told me that it was quite the steep drop, but I wasn't anticipating it to be THIS massive. As I looked over the cliff, down at the flat and grassy land below, I figured that it was somewhere close to 10 stories high, but I was hoping that was just my imagination. I've never really been too afraid of heights, but I found himself being intimidated by the death drop. It was almost like a big mouth, eagerly awaiting its prey.

"Aw, come on, Morgan. Don't tell me you're scared of little drop like that," Rainbow Dash said as she landed on the ground next to me.

"You call this a SMALL drop?" I asked with wide eyes. "If I were to hit the ground from up here, I'd die!"

"Maybe in your world you would, but a drop like this wouldn't kill you here in Equestria," she responded, making me breathe a sigh of relief. "I'd say it would just break a bone or two."

I paled as I drank in Rainbow Dash's assertion.

"But that would probably only happen in the worst case scenario," Dash added. "You'd probably just be sore for a couple of weeks if you hit the ground."

"Ok, there is no way I'm doing this." I turned to leave.

"Morgan, you're worrying too much. You want to learn how to fly, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'd rather not put myself in the hospital in the process," I said. "What if Twilight ended up figuring out how to get me home? It would sure as heck be hard trying to get home when I'm stuck in a hospital bed for weeks."

"Weeks? It only takes a few days to fix up broken bones," she responded, confused.

"A couple of days? How does that make any sense at-" I cut himself off and facehoofed. "Oh yeah, I'm in a cartoon. I keep forgetting that part."

As I looked over this candy-colored world of sunshine and sugar, I suddenly felt… lonely. I felt myself wondering if any time had really passed back home, and if my friends and family were worried. Even though everything here hadn't been as bad as I'd thought they'd be, the familiar taste of home was slowly slinking away from me, and I didn't know when I'd ever find it again.

Or even IF I'd ever find it again. I blinked, and suddenly, my eyes felt wet and hot.

Rainbow Dash looked at me, probably feeling my mood suddenly change. "Hey, what's wrong?"

I wiped away my tear and hid my face. "I-It's nothing. Don't worry about it."

The cyan pegasus dropped from her position above, sitting down in front of me. "It doesn't sound like nothing," she said. She examined me a little more closely as I looked away. "You're feeling homesick, aren't you?"

I shifted, my eyes darting aside. "…A little," I admitted.

At this, Rainbow Dash gave me something I thought I'd never receive from someone like her: a genuine, warm smile. Her rosy eyes seemed to lose their attitude and instead became like a warm fireplace at home. She rested a hoof on my shoulder.

"I know the feeling, bro. Being so far away from home hurts like nothin' else. But you'll go home eventually." After a second, her hoof fell away. "If there's a way to bring you to Ponyville, then there's a way to get you back home. Y'just gotta hang in there."

I paused. "Thanks," I finally said, at a loss for anything else to say. "That was, um…"

I felt a playful punch at my shoulder. "Hey, I'm not the Element of Loyalty for nothing, y'know! I'm here for ya!" Suddenly, she scowled as she leaned into my face. "But anymore of that sappy stuff, and I'mma wreck you. Deal?"

A slow smile spread across my face. I chuckled—and suddenly erupted into a relieved laugh. Rainbow Dash joined in. It took a few minutes for the both of us to recover ourselves.

"Alright, so what's the first thing that I need to know?" I finally asked.

"First, you need to learn how to move your wings," Rainbow Dash said. I nodded and started flexing the muscles that controlled my wings, causing them to flap around. "And by move your wings, I mean how to actually flap them. Not make them look like you're trying to jerk off."

"Wait, what?"

"Eh, it's a pegasus thing."

"Right," I said as I stopped messing with my wings. "Well, at least now I know which muscles control my wings...So how do I 'control" them, exactly?"

"It's actually easier than you think. All you got to do is get the hang of moving your wings in the way you want them to. If you move the muscles up, the wings will come up." Rainbow demonstrated by bringing up her wings until they were fully stretched out. "Then you bring the muscles back down to bring down the wings." Once again, she brought down her wings and tucked them away to illustrate what she said.

"It's really that easy?" I asked, skeptically.

"Yep! Give it a try."

I nodded and focused on my wings. Slowly, I flexed my right wing's muscles until it stood up straight. Just as carefully as before, I did the same for my left wing. I, being satisfied with this modest success, wore an ear-to-ear grin.

"Wow, that was pretty easy." I quickly dropped his wings and suddenly felt myself lifting off the ground a bit. Being shocked by being in midair, I wasn't able to react in time and fell as I came back to the ground. "Ow."

Rainbow Dash giggled to herself as I lifted myself from off the ground.

"Well, ya didn't do it too gracefully, but that's a good enough way to bring me to the next lesson: Lifting off the ground. If you lightly flap your wings up and down, you can hover above the ground." Dash started to flap her wings and lifted slightly off the ground. "And if you flap them harder, like how you did, then you can go higher." After increasing the quickness of her wing movements, the pegasus began to go higher in the air until she was nearly the height of a house above me. Finally, she brought herself back down to the ground.

"Since you're just starting out, we're not going to have you go too high."

"If that's the case, why the heck did you bring me to this cliff?" I asked.

"Not really patient, are you?" The mare asked. "Just be cool. We'll get to that in a bit. For now, I just want you to get the hang of flapping your wings and staying in the air. Remember, just lightly move your wings."

"Got it." I firmly planted my hooves on the ground and prepared myself. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and began to lightly move my wings in unison. Slowly, I felt myself beginning to lift in the air and hover above the ground. I opened my eyes and looked down. When I saw that I was successfully hovering, a wide grin spread across my face.

"Woo! Check me out," I exclaimed as I kept lightly flapping my wings to stay airborne. "This is awesome."

"Impressive," Dash said. "Just keep it up so that you can get the hang of it. If you want to move around, just lean in the direction you want to go."

I began moving around in different directions, making sure to keep up my wing movements as I did so. I started out with very slight movements to get the hang of it, then moved up to more dramatic movements as I grew more confident with my hovering. Soon enough, I found myself hovering with ease.

"Oh man, this is so cool," I said as I moved backwards in midair, trying to moonwalk as I did so. A wide grin was spreading across myself from how much I was enjoying myself.

"Not bad, Morgan," Dash complimented. "Now I want you to land."

"How do I do that?" I asked, looking down at the ground with a puzzled look.

"Just bring your wings down and stop flapping. Duh."

I nodded and did as I was told. As I began to descend, I tried to brace myself for the landing, but I landed with a solid thud anyways. Rainbow chuckled. "Nicely done. When you're high in the air, you'll want to get close to the ground and slow down before you land. Otherwise, you'll crash, and it don't feel too good. Trust me, I know."

"Yes, because I did so swimmingly at landing from the small hovering distance," I sarcastically commented as I stood back up.

"Don't worry about it," Dash replied. "Just work on your landing a bit more and you'll get the hang of it. All you need to do is make sure that all your hooves are ready for the landing. They can't be swung out somewhere, they need to be facing the ground. Do that, and landing should be a breeze."

I gave Dash a nod and began flapping my wings once again so that I would lift off of the ground. Once I made sure all four of my hooves were facing the ground correctly, I tucked my wings down and fell. This time, I stuck the landing and avoided falling down.

"You're catching on pretty quick, Morgan. I think you're ready for the next phase," the cyan pegasus said, motioning to the edge of the cliff that we were on. I gulped.

"Oh joy," I said. "What is the next phase exactly?"

"Gliding," Rainbow Dash replied. She brought her wings up and galloped off the edge of the cliff. After flapping her wings for a bit, she bent them back and leaned forward, causing her to glide through the air. She circled around and flew back up to me.

"You want me to do that?" I asked with my mouth agape. "I'll repeat my earlier question: Are you some kind of lunatic?"

"You don't have to circle back up to here," Dash responded. "I just want you to glide down to the ground."

"What, and break my skull in the process?"

"You're worrying too much, Morgan. There's nothing to it, all you got to do to glide is bring your wings back and lean forward. If you lean up and flap, then you can go up, and if you lean down, you go down. It's easier than it sounds, trust me," she said trying to assure me.

"I don't know," I hesitantly replied.

"Listen, nothing bad will happen. I won't let you get hurt, I promise."

Rainbow Dash gave me a comforting smile. After thinking about it for a bit, I sighed.

"Fine. What's the worst thing that could happen." I slowly walked up to the edge of cliff. I looked down at the long fall in terror. "You know, besides getting put in the hospital."

I tried to clear my mind and breathed in and out. Once I was as calm as I could manage, I slowly started walking back.

"Well, it's now or never." I galloped forward and began flapping his wings. Not looking directly down, I lifted into the air and soared over the edge. Once I knew that I was over, I brought my wings back and leaned forward. I could hear Rainbow Dash cheering for me back on the cliff.

"Great job, Morgan," she yelled out.

I smiled as he focused on the flying. The sensation of soaring through the air felt amazing. The wind pushed by me as if it was afraid to get in my path. As I flew, the world around me became a playset: I could go anywhere and do anything. There's a reason why man has always dreamed of flying… and this, I decided, THIS is that reason.

I felt like he could do anything. Every other worry, my cares, my homesickness—everything… just melted away. I was flying away from those burdens, and didn't care to look back.

"Just don't look down."

As soon as Rainbow Dash had said this, I suddenly looked down and my eyes grew wide. I had almost forgotten about how high I was off the ground and now there was no cliff to land on. All that was below me was a humongous drop. I began to panic and all of a sudden lost control of my wings. Unable to react in time, I felt himself plummeting to the ground.

"Oh shit!" I flailed his arms in terror as I rocketed down. I wanted to move my wings, but my body seemed too terrified to respond. As I looked down, the ground was approaching fast. Giving up hope, I shut my eyes tightly, readying myself for the impact. All I could do is hope that I wasn't seriously hurt when I hit the-

"Gotcha," I heard Rainbow say, interrupting my train of thought.

I felt myself land, but not on the ground. It felt like I had landed in a soft pile of marshmallows. I slowly opened my eyes and looked down in curiosity. When I looked down, I was shocked to see that not only was I not splattered on the ground, I was laying on a cloud.

"I'm...on a cloud?" I asked, incredibly puzzled.

"You sure are," Rainbow Dash replied as she stuck her head out from below the cloud. "Caught you with it just in time."

"Huh?"

Rainbow giggled at my dumbfounded look.

"Another cool thing about being a pegasus is that we can walk on clouds. Since we're able to be airborne, it's another thing that we can do, along with controlling the weather," she explained.

I looked from Rainbow Dash, to the cloud, confused. As what she had said began to sink in, I, too, began to laugh.

"Heh, so being a pegasus means I can walk on clouds, eh? I don't remember any animals back home being able to do that. This is pretty cool." I stared off as I began to think. "So unicorns and regular ponies can't walk on clouds?"

"Nope," Dash replied. "I mean, unicorns can cast a spell that allows unicorns and earth ponies to walk on clouds temporarily, but pegasi can do it naturally and all the time. Heck, we even have an entire city in the clouds." She pointed her hooves up to the sky. When I looked at where she was pointing, I saw a gigantic city of clouds up in the air. My jaw dropped as I looked at the impressive sight.

"Coooool," I said.

"Yep, that's Cloudsdale," Dash replied. "Completely made out of clouds and 100% awesome."

"Neat," I said. "So you can just move them around and stand on them however you want?"

"Pretty much. Moving clouds is part of how we're able to control the weather."

"Yeah, you guys even make the rainbows, don't you?" I asked. "I think my friend back home wanted me to read a story about it. Something about a factory."

"Cool, I could tell you about how we pegasi control the weather and what not later, but I think we should finish your flying lessons first."

"Oh yeah," I said. "And if I mess up, you'll just catch me in the cloud?"

"Right," Dash replied. "Just try to get the hang of gliding and you'll be in good shape. Try leaning different directions while you're gliding like how you did when you hovered. Just glide down to the ground. I'll be ready to catch you if something goes wrong."

"Right then." I began flapping his wings and lifted himself back up to the top of the cliff. Once there, I attempted to glide again. Taking Dash's advice, I moved through the air in different directions, taking care to not again become drunk with the sensation of flight. I breathed in sharply as I began to full-circle in mid-air, relieved that I didn't mess it up and have to be rescued again.

"Alright, time to land." I took a deep breath and focused. "You can do this, Morgan."

I looked down at the ground in front of me and began to lean downwards. As expected, I felt myself starting to go down, although I seemed to be increasing in speed as I went.

"Morgan, you got to have your wings out to slow down," Rainbow yelled up at the stallion as he flew down. He did as she said and stuck out his wings. Suddenly, the wind pushed against his wings, decelerating his speed. Soon enough, I was back at a comfortable speed right as I was nearing the ground. Once I was close to the bottom, I folded down my wings and safely landed.

"I did it!" I pumped my front hoof in victory. "Soared through the air like a pro. Batman ain't got crap on me!"

"Morgan, you did awesome," Rainbow Dash said as she came over to congratulate me. "That was fantastic."

"It was, wasn't it?" I confidently boasted. "I'm now on par with the pegasi in Equestria and it only took about an hour!"

"Somepony's getting a bit full of themselves, aren't they?" Rainbow Dash chuckled to herself. "Actually, you're closer to being on the same level as fillies that have just started to learn how to fly. You've got a ways to go before you reach the levels of most stallions your age."

The confident look on my face faded a bit and I began to pout.

"Of course, I could teach you some more stuff today that might get you close to where you need to be," Dash added as she nudged me. I looked up and grinned.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's get to learning!"

* * *

"I've got to admit, Morgan, you're learning pretty well."

Rainbow Dash watched as I flew above her, flying around in circles and giggling to myself like a school girl.

"This is so sweet!" I kept laughing as I flew up and landed on a cloud. "Only a couple of hours and I'm flying like it's second nature to me!"

"Well, you're no Wonderbolt," Dash said as she flew up to join me. "But I'd say you're in pretty good shape for a human. Thanks to my radical teaching, that is. You're welcome, by the way."

"Now who's the cocky one?" I replied with a chuckle. "And, yeah, thanks for teaching me all of this. It's been fun."

"Fun, eh? Bet you didn't think you'd be using that word when you got here, did you?" Dash asked.

"I'll admit, you cartoon horses have pleasantly surprised me with some things, but I do need to get home. Actually, I think it's about time to go check on Twilight to see if she's made an progress on finding me a way home."

"Then I guess you should be heading on back to the library. I think it's about time to call it a day, anyway. You keep practicing your flying. Never hurts to try and learn some more stuff," Dash said.

"I will. Thanks again for the lessons," I said as I exchanged a hoof bump with Dash. Suddenly, I felt himself getting swept up in a tight hug. My eyes widened as Rainbow Dash pulled herself away and patted me on the back, that warm-fireplace look returning to her eyes.

"Don't mention it. See you around."

Rainbow quickly took off and dashed through the air at high speeds, becoming out of my eyesight within seconds. With her gone, I began to fly back to Ponyville. As I soared through the air, feeling the wind bend all around me, feeling so very free… I smacked right into another pegasus and fell to the ground.

"Ow. Sorry about that, wasn't watching where I was going." I looked up and saw that the pegasus that I had bumped into was a familiar one. "Derpy?"

"Huh?" Derpy looked up to see me and smiled. "Oh, hey Morgan. Don't worry about it, I wasn't really watching where I was going, either. It may sound hard to believe, but I actually bump into people all the time too. By the way, nice flying out there today."

"You saw that?" I asked.

"Yeah! I was on my way to deliver some mail to Ponyville when I saw Rainbow Dash and you flying. It was pretty cool."

"I see. Well, thanks," I replied. "So, you just getting done with your Ponyville mail delivery?"

"Yep, was just on my way back home when I bumped into you." Derpy's face scrunched up as she seemed to think about something. "Oh, I've been meaning to ask you, what was up with you and Lyra the other day?"

"Lyra?" I asked. "You mean that green unicorn?"

"Yeah! She was watching you the other day while you were at the arcade," Derpy replied.

"Really? Why would she be doing that?" I wondered.

"Not sure." Derpy suddenly got a look of excitement. "Ooo, what is she's like your secret admirer or something? I bet she has a crush on you!"

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"You know, you guys should totally get together. I think the two of you would make a cute couple," Derpy said.

"Uhh..."

"Heck, I bet you guys would make cute kids, too!"

"UHHH..."

"Actually, I just saw Lyra a few minutes ago near town hall. You should go make a move," Derpy suggested.

"You did?" I thought about what a pony could be doing secretly watching me and found something unsettling about it. Even though the very idea of a cartoon pony lusting after me creeped me out, I decided it was best to confront her about it. "Actually, I think I will pay her a visit."

"Oh my gosh, you two are totally going to hook up aren't you?" Derpy jumped up and down in excitement. "I can't wait to tell everypony!"

"Huh? No, Derpy wait!"

My plea was too late as Derpy had already taken off at speeds that I couldn't manage to keep up with due to my inexperience with flying. I facehoofed as my cross-eyed quarry shot for Ponyville.

"Oh great! Now they're all gonna think I'm dating some other pony! This day was going so well, too."

I sighed and looked up at Ponyville. I narrowed my eyes as I spotted town hall.

"Oh well, what's done is done. Might as well go see what's up with this Lyra character."


End file.
